Recollection
by Taleya
Summary: It's back! Three years after walking out, Harry is forced to re-face the past, and a certain potions master....including a child he never knew he had (SLASH. Dont read if you don't like)
1. Default Chapter

From the diary of Hermione Granger:

_Looking back, I wonder how we could have missed it. It was so obvious!_

_We all knew something was going with Professor Snape and Harry – they were at each others throats even more than usual and if it hadn't been for the end of year battle against Voldemort I don't think we would have won the house cup – Harry cost us nearly 200 hundred points over the year with Professor Snape alone! Although I really do think that Harry shouldn't have called Professor Snape a "Greased up gimp looking for a good rodgering". Even though I don't think the Professor fully understood some of the muggle terms, he knew he was being insulted._

_Then again, "Cancerous polyp on the anus of humanity, both wizard and muggle alike" was going a tad beyond Professor Snape's usual repertoire. The 'obnoxious brat,' detention and 20-point deduction that followed it however, was more of what we've come to expect._

_Still, I don't think anything really could have prepared us for what happened!_

_We lived with the secret for a long while – nearly three years, in fact. We unwittingly kept a secret that we didn't even know existed. If we had, things might have turned out so differently. I still can't believe that no one told Harry. Then again, Ron never told me the full story either…._

_I don't think anyone really knew the full story until the year the threat of Voldemort rose again…_   



	2. Chapter 1

The Boy Who Lived was now the Man Who Fought.

Barely a man, and certainly more than worthy of the title, Harry Potter had been fighting the battles of the adult world since he was twelve years old.

And he was getting damned tired of it.

Harry no longer knew if he fought for vengeance, or for the side of good. Most of the time it just felt like he fought for the right to live his life free of a dark shadow.

He was an Auror now.

The wizarding world was torn again by tales of the Dark Lord. It seemed for every nest of Death Eaters they uncovered, another three took its place. There were always those who would sacrifice anything for power, who would court and whore themselves to it, who would ally themselves with any promise of supremacy, no matter what the cost. Fear was a constant companion, conspiracy lurked behind hidden corners.

They were taking children, this time. And Harry Potter was mad as hell.

Another dead end, another nest of Death Eaters, praising a lord who was never seen, who never showed his hand. No one even knew if Voldemort was truly back, but mention of the name alone was enough to put them on their guard. They had learned the lessons of ten years ago well enough.

Harry scrubbed a hand wearily over his face, fingers tracing the scar on his forehead. There was no pain, no warning, and that somehow made it all the worse. It was as if   
Voldemort was gone, but the evil remained, like a stain that could never be removed. All it meant now was that they had no way of knowing now, no advance of when the next act would occur, what it would be. No way of telling until the bodies began to show up, until the mark blazed once more across the sky.

There had been some sort of ritual here. What kind, it would have been hard to tell if the results weren't already seared into his soul. A raging battle had all but torn the area apart, fragments of the simmering cauldron imbedded deep into the ground, the earth itself writhing still after the effects of so many spells at once. Smoke wreathed between sickly trees, the smell of some sort of potion hanging across the air in a sickening shadow.

But still, he looked. Looked for what he knew he would find. Soul shrieking against this duty – how many times had it been now? – stomach churning in the knowledge of what would be there, mind steeling itself to the task.

He looked.

Which is how he found the little girl.

She'd been protected from the battle, curled up behind what had once been the support of a stone altar. The top of the altar itself had been blown halfway across the moor. Crouching down, he felt his heart catch in his throat. She couldn't have been more than 2 years old, a beautiful little thing with black hair curling around an almost cherubic face.

He steeled himself, feeling his face tighten as he felt for a pulse, already half-knowing what he would find in a place like this.

His fingertips touched still warm flesh and he let a strangled noise escape from his throat. Alive. Oh thank Merlin, alive! He carefully lifted the sleeping form and braced her against his shoulder. It throbbed dully from where an incendiary spell had cut too close, burning his skin but he hardly felt it as he stumbled his way out of the wreckage, cradling his precious burden. Alive, thank Merlin alive, too often they had come too late and found the missing child dead or worse, a half-living mass of twisted flesh, warped and hissing as it crawled along the ground. The ministry believed that somehow the Death Eaters were trying to bring Voldemort's soul back, the blackest of arts mixing with the deadliest of agendas.

The eldest stolen child had been barely three. And Harry himself had put the dying mass of flesh out of its hell, a kindness to the screeching agony it had known for the brief last hours of its tiny life. Too often they had been too late, too many had been lost, but this one, oh thank god, this one was alive. Unharmed.

Tears cut stark tracks along his face, unnoticed and unheeded as he headed to a patch of soft moss, laying the child down with exaggerated care, shaking hands reaching for his wand and light, trembling fingers touching unmarked skin and heart singing in exultation. Alive. Unharmed. _Whole._

His fingers stroked against a soft cheek again and startling green eyes opened, locking on his own. He felt a sob try to escape, and choked it on a grin, smiling down at the little one who stared up at him so quietly.

Then the tiny arms reached for him in a silent plea for comfort and he _did_ cry, gathering her up in his arms and rocking her as she howled in relief, running his hand up and down that perfect, unharmed back, along those smooth unmarked arms, pressing his face to hers and letting their tears mingle on the ground.

Eventually the howls died to sobs, then to hiccoughs as she leaned against him, one finger to her mouth, sucking hungrily on the digit. Reaching out, Harry picked up the discarded blanket on the ground, bringing it to the light. One set of parents he could return their child to, alive and well. His heart ached for the dozens for whom he never could.

Bringing the blanket to the light, he searched for a clue, a name. What he saw sent a bolt of old memories and regrets lancing through his heart. There, embroidered in a tiny seal in the corner. The lion, the snake, the badger and the Raven, united around a large H.

Hogwarts.

He hadn't stepped foot inside his alma mater since he had graduated, leaving behind the halls, the dorms, the ghosts and feasts.

And his heart.

He hadn't looked back.

Harry sighed and cradled the infant to his chest. The ministry was out of the question – he wouldn't trust that stupid fart Fudge to take care of a fully-grown adult, let alone a helpless child. And Hogwarts would be a start, to find the parents, to reunite them with their lost child.

There was nothing for it.

Time to go back and face the past. 


	3. Chapter 2

He'd floo'd into Hogsmead from the nearest networked house, running the thin line of exhaustion, not trusting himself to apparate with his precious cargo. He'd had some vague idea of walking to the castle, but knew that he would never make it. Walking and sleeping where he fell was nothing new, but he had a child to take care of. And she needed somewhere warm and safe to rest.

He staggered into the Hog's Head, unmindful of the way all conversation stopped dead the instant he entered. He was far too used to that sort of thing now.

It was a little known fact that the Hog's Head had rooms for let. So little known in fact, that the innkeeper himself was ready to swear it wasn't so. A clumsy handful of galleons reminded him and Harry was soon fighting the overwhelming urge collapse face-down onto sheets that smelled distressingly of mould. Other things to consider first.

He'd never been around a child of this age before. Could they feed themselves? Did they even eat solid foods? He ordered whatever they had with a jug of milk and stared at it for a while. While he was debating with himself the little girl tired of waiting and solved his dilemma by picking up a roll from the table and chewing on it.

Right. Answered that question.

He wasn't really that hungry – more tired than hungry, but he forced down a bowl of stew for the look of things. The little girl watched him quietly as he ate, green eyes studying his every move. It was an oddly familiar stare, and it unnerved him.

He distracted himself by working out the next stage of his actions. He was tempted to ask the little girl who her parents were but he wasn't sure if she could even answer him. Failing that, some of the children had been taken by force. He didn't want to face the consequences of asking a little child who her parents were to find that she had watched them killed in front of her. Finally he gave it up as a lost cause and just leaned back against the wall, working the fabric of the blanket between two fingers.

Hogwarts blanket, Hogwarts crest. That meant a link to the school, but not necessarily that the parents were past students – the blanket was too new. Teachers then. But who? One of the staff? He shuddered involuntarily at the thought of Filch procreating. Dumbledore, McGonagall, all too old, so he focused on the younger professors. Hooch? Maybe Hagrid and Madame Maxine had made it after all – no, if the little girl was theirs she would have most likely broken the chair. Snape?

Snape…

He steered his mind firmly away from that subject, shaking his head a little to dispel the thoughts.

A sudden weight made him look down. The little girl had clambered into his lap and was settling down, hands reaching for the blanket. He let her have it, a smile rising and fading as she cuddled it possessively to her chest, then stared up again at him, that same oh-so-familiar penetrating gaze. She seemed to be searching for something in his face – he didn't know if she found it or not but she seemed satisfied, leaning against his chest and blinking sleepily.

Cradling her in his arms, he pushed himself to his feet and made his way to the bed. The toddler sighed as he pulled back the sheets and laid her down, stirring in her sleep and shifting closer, pressing her face to his chest when he kicked off his shoes and clambered in behind her, wrapping an arm around the tiny form protectively.

He was already oddly fond of his little companion, feeling in some strange way that she belonged to him. Dangerous thoughts. He stared over her head at the wall, listening to the sounds of drunken singing, the occasional curse and clatter of spilled tankards, one hand unconsciously reaching up to gently stroke the dark hair tucked under his chin. Hard to believe that a little up the road, across the grounds was the castle. Safest place in all the wizarding world. Home and heart to some of the greatest wizards in history.

"Nearly home…" he whispered, to the sleeping form curled against him or to himself he couldn't tell. "Nearly safe…" 


	4. Chapter 3

It seemed he'd barely closed his eyes before someone was banging on the door. It was that annoying sort of surreptitious noise that let you know that while the knocker doesn't want to wake you up while you're sleeping, they're not leaving until you wake up and answer the door.

Except louder.

Only one person Harry had ever known could quietly knock a door loudly.

Rolling over, habit had his wand in his hand before he'd even finished turning. He knew in his gut who it was, but becoming one of the top Auror's in the country had also taught him lessons the hard way. Paranoia was a hard habit to shake.

With a quick glance at his charge, the door opened a suspicious crack, then burst open wider as a gigantic figure shambled in, arms wide for a hug. "Harry!"

"Hullo, Hagrid." he winced, readying himself for the squashing that was sure to follow, but it never came. It wasn't one of Hagrid's usual booming glad-to-see-you-pick-you-up-off-your-feet-whoops-didn't-know-my-own-strength-there rib crunching hugs but tighter, almost desperate and quickly broken as the half-giant stepped back, big hands twisting nervously about each other like snakes.

"H-harry…" he whispered, as if afraid of the answer. "I don't mean ter..ter be rude… I'm glad ter see you …only I know yer an' Auror and all that now….and I know….I mean I popped down here early in for some information, you see, and Vimes downstairs said yeh were here and yeh had with you a little baby girl, with black hair and green eyes an' all…" his hands twisted each other harder, hope warring with despair in his eyes.

"Oh, yes." Harry blinked and touched a hand to his forehead. Turning, he carefully picked up his sleeping charge, cradling her against his shoulder. "We found her – we found her in time." His voice was getting unsteady as the realisation hit him all over again. "The Death Eaters, they didn't have time to do anything," he hastily reassured as he gently turned the child's face to the other man. "she's all right, and I saw the blankets with the Hogwarts' crest and I thought that – "

But Hagrid wasn't listening, he'd sunk to his knees in front of Harry, tears welling up in his beetle-black eyes. "It's her," he breathed. "Oh sweet Merlin. Oh thank sweet Merlin…" he reached out and traced a finger over the tiny features. "It's her, oh sweet Merlin it's her, I didn't tell the others 'cos I weren't sure but oh…" words failed him. Fishing in the pockets of his voluminous coat, the big man unearthed a handkerchief the size of a small bedspread. A honking noise like a lovesick moose trumpeted through the room, then Hagrid was getting to his feet and this time it _was_ a pick-you-up- off-your-feet hug.

"Ah Harry, we don't know how to thank yeh!" the big man gushed shamelessly into his hair. "Don't know how to thank you and that's the truth. Oops," he backed off and peered down at the miraculously still sleeping child. "Didn't squash the little one did I? Good, good, come on, lets pack your things up and get you two back and safe to Hogwarts, eh? I know some people that will be right glad to see the pair of you."

* * *

It was dawn, Harry noticed as they made their way up High Street to the castle. Morning mist still hung in the still air, the soft light of an approaching day giving an unreal cast to the world.

"Sorry we didn't give you a proper welcome an' all that." Hagrid apologised as they made their way across the little bridge over the station. "Been dark days in Hogwarts for a while now. Dark days indeed. What with all those poor little ones being taken, and the Death Eaters on the rise an' we thought this time we were safe, but then poor minta was taken and we feared the worse…" Hagrid started to blabber again, dabbing at his eyes with his now quite-soggy handkerchief. "Still it's right enough now, you've brought her back to us." his face changed expressions so fast it should have cracked, then he gave into the feeling and threw his head back, letting loose a hoot of joy that melted earwax. "YAHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!"

"Hagrid!" Harry cringed, then winced down at the child in his arms. To his relief, although bright green eyes were open and blinking, the little features weren't screwing into a howl, they were lifting up into a grin, the solemn little face finally breaking into a chubby smile and giggles as waving arms reached out to a familiar sight.

"Agrid!!!"

Hagrid beamed even wider if it was possible, crouching down to chuck the bouncing infant under the chin. "That's right, you're a clever one aren't you 'Minta?" He lifted her easily up into the air, chuckling as she grabbed at his beard. "And we're right glad to see you safe and sound. We've all been darn near beside ourselves with worry, and poor Professor…"

He fell silent for a long moment, then forced a grin, fishing for his handkerchief again. "Still. Things'll be better now Araminta's back safe and sound." He patted Harry's uninjured shoulder in an absently reassuring way as they set off again. "That's the little one's name by the way. Araminta. Distinguished, don't you think?" He tilted his head down to the desperately happy toddler who was currently swinging off two chubby handfuls of his beard.

"Um…yes…" Harry blinked and asked the question he'd been trying to work out for himself since seeing the Hogwarts blanket. "So…the little girl….she's…your daughter?"

"Mine? Naw, she's Professor Snape's little one." Hagrid patted through his pockets one-handed, searching for something.

Harry blinked again, then looked up at the child in the giant's arms. Snapes. So…he'd found someone else.   
  
There was an odd ache in his chest. Funny, he didn't think it would hurt so much after this time. Oh it was good…it was good that Snape had found love again. But…only…

Why hadn't it been him?

Tied around the feeling was an odd mixture of pride, shame and relief. If there was only one child he could save….he was glad it could be Snape's. Some way to apologise, to make up for the way it had ended between them, almost like he was holding the little girl up to say "see? I can do good too…" like a shameful dog trying to appease its master.

His own thoughts horrified him sometimes.

Shaking his head a little, he brought his hand up to knead at the bridge of his nose as Hagrid found whatever it was he was fishing for. Brushing a few errant dog-biscuit crumbs from a silver whistle, he placed it to his lips and gave a single, long note.

In response to the summons, a little boat drifted out from the pre-dawn mist towards them. He recognised it as one of the ones that carried the first years to the castle, but there was something odd about the way it carried itself. Not with the smooth glide he remembered them moving with from his years at Hogwarts, this one was almost stalking through the water, looking rather pissed off, in a boaty sort of way.

It rocked unnecessarily when they clambered aboard and Hagrid gave it a sharp smack across the prow before handing the chortling toddler over to the other man. "Here Harry, you take little 'Minta for a bit. I'll need both hands to steer the boat, they get real cranky when you wake them up outside of first years."

The boat creaked rebelliously at them and Hagrid shook a warning finger at it before gathering up a little paddle and pushing them away from the shore. "Didn't have any horses yeh see," he explained as they made their way across the placid lake. "Was just me out for my walk and t'ain't much of a walk at that for me so I didn't bother. Still, the boats are fine enough, provided they ** behave themselves,**" this last was followed by another slap on the side of the boat as it shuddered on becalmed waters. It creaked mutinously and rocked harder in a sullen sort of way before settling down and Harry surreptitiously reached out to clutch the edge. "Sorry about that. Nearly there…"

Araminta twisted in his lap and subjected Harry to another one of those damnable stares. They were even more unnerving now he knew who they reminded him of. The face was chubby and rosy, not lean and pale, and the eyes emerald green instead of jet-black, but the look was still the same. The look that said: "You may be beneath my notice. You may be of worth. At the moment it appears you are leaning towards the former, but perhaps you may surprise me, although given your current predilection for stupidity I sincerely doubt it."

Receiving it from her father had been bad enough. Getting it from someone not even old enough to be able to pronounce the full alphabet with clarity was surreal.

Lord, he'd have to face Snape now. He wasn't sure if he could. He was wondering if he could back out of it now, leaving Hagrid to take the child home but the prospect of a pre-dawn splash in the Great Lake wasn't that inviting. To top it off, as if sensing his thoughts, the little girl reached up and firmly wrapped a hand in the front of his robes, anchoring him in place before turning her gaze back to the front of the boat, where a curtain of ivy draped over them for an instant, then they were docking at the little harbour near the base of the castle proper.

Too late now... 


	5. Chapter 4

It hadn't changed.

Reasonable enough, it had only been three years since he'd left – three years? It felt like an eternity – and the castle was over a thousand years old

Still, something should have changed. Just _something,_ not much, but just enough to stop this feeling, this feeling that he'd stepped back in time and could somehow change what happened, like he could start over again and stop it all.

Idiot fancies and childish dreams. When had he lost that wonder?

Their footsteps echoed oddly in the torchlit halls, fuelling the unreality of this early hour, growing daylight warring with flames to create strange shapes on the walls in flickering shadows, distant figures snoring softly in their picture frames and Hagrid shot him an apologetic glance. "I know it's early an' all, and you'd probably rather be asleep, but we'd feel a lot better knowing 'Minta's safe in the castle proper."

Harry nodded dully, one hand reaching out to grasp the edge of the marble staircase as they headed up to the second floor. Bubbles of unreality foamed in his head, adventures and terrors and faces past and gone kept flickering in and out of the corners of his vision, making him wonder if he'd gone mad.

"It were Hogsmeade she was taken from, you see." Hagrid was saying. "Down near Dervish and Banges. Ambush it looked like. Poor Professor Snape, he gave them as good as he got though …" His voice trailed off into another one of those odd silences, another forced smile. "Remus and ol' Black have been out looking ever since it happened. So've half the Professors! Not been a class for a while, what with half the staff gone. Gonna be a right mess getting them all back, a right mess indeed."

Eventually though, even Hagrid's voice faded into uncomfortable silence. It didn't last long however, as the background whispering that had been fading in and out of hearing since they stepped into the building rose up into a angry quarrelling pitch from the portraits lining the walls. The portrait of Professor Sasuke on the ground floor was well known as a notoriously early riser and he'd darted from picture to picture, waking up the inhabitants as he unceremoniously trod on venerable beards and dress robes in his hurry to keep up with the pair. "Look! Look, it's Harry Potter! Look who he has with him!" The spritely portrait soon had a collection of followers, all of them vying for space in crammed picture frames, elbows flying and curses muttered as they all tried to get into the front row. Half of them were cooing down at the little girl in his arms, the rest were hissing and calling to him, trying to attract his attention. All of them had broad grins on their faces, and some of them were crying.   
  
Harry put his head down and increased his pace, feeling the portraits keeping up with him at a frantic rate until they collided with a **thud** in a tangle of limbs against the edge of the last frame as they turned into the featureless corridor that led to Dumbledore's office.

_…will you _kindly_ remove your _nose_ from my _ear...__

They made their way past the stone gargoyle guarding the entrance, then they were on their way up the gently revolving staircase. Araminta wriggled in his grasp, finally squirming free and leading the way, running in circles around and up the seemingly endless length of the tower with a toddler's boundless energy, finally waiting impatiently in front of the door for them.

Here at least, there was change. Albus Dumbledore looked old and worn, older than Harry had ever seen him, even during the worst times of his years at Hogwarts. Despite the early hour, he showed all the signs of a man who had been working for several hours. He was poring over a sheet of papers, wand circling constantly at his side over a map, casting seeking spell after seeking spell. At the moment it was focusing on Mile End. As they watched, one hand rose to rub wearily at his temple.

Hagrid cleared his throat, but Araminta had already darted forwards, one hand sneaking into the bowl on the Headmaster's desk, groping for treats. Automatically, Dumbledore reached out and caught it in his own. "Not now Araminta," he murmured absently. "You'll spoil your appetite for break…fast…"

He blinked, then drew his hand back, parchment-thin fingers shaking. He slowly raised his head, not wishing to dispel the illusion creeping through his mind, hope trembling on his lips as he blinked disbelievingly at the toddler beside his desk.

She blew a raspberry at him.

"ARAMINTA!" The bellow boomed through the stone halls as Dumbledore snatched the child up into his arms. The sound of joy was echoed through out the room by the various portraits of headmasters past, many of them sharing frames with hall portraits that had managed somehow to get into the room. The toddler was squealing as well, clinging to the old man with obvious delight as he peppered her grinning face with kisses.

Hagrid let out a chuckle at the sight and Dumbledore looked up, completely unabashed as Araminta returned his kisses with sloppy bubbles and got to his feet, fairly charging around the desk to snatch Harry up in a bearhug. "Harry Potter!" Showing surprising strength for his reputed 160 years, he swung them both around in a giddy jig. "My dear boy, my dear, dear boy, you brought her back to us, safe and sound. Oh my word, we were so worried when we heard the news about the Death Eaters, and then when the child was taken…oh my dear, _ dear_ boy!" The old headmaster was quite overcome, joyous tears flowing freely down his long beard as he pulled back and planted a large kiss smack on the embarrassed Auror's cheek.

There was a loud squawk from behind them as one of the struggling portrait figures tried to hex another for shoving an elbow up his nose.

Dabbling hastily at the tears on his cheeks, Dumbledore delightedly drew Harry and Hagrid further into his office, producing a teapot, four cups (three normal sized and one transfigured for childish hands) and a plate of biscuits, the latter which the toddler gleefully fell on. With the fire stoked back up to full roar and gently warming the room it started to feel more and more like a real homecoming. The headmaster hastily floo'd for a house elf and scribbled endless notes to be owled out and about to various searchers before setting down himself and begging to hear the tale, Araminta seated firmly in his lap, a growing ring of chocolate around her face.

Harry retold his tale quickly, almost by rote, pausing now and then to answer questions as they were asked. Looking about, wondering where Snape was the entire time, both eager for and dreading his presence.

Albus sat back, hand stroking his beard thoughtfully. "So you had no idea….but the ministry was one of the first notified…Curious. Curious indeed. Still, no matter, Araminta is back safe and sound and that's the important thing!" another explosion of joy filled the room, and both Harry and the toddler were subjected to yet another round of frantic hugs.

"Now, I think it's time for a full school assembly – it's time we let everyone know that the worry is over!" Dumbledore got to his feet, brushing off his robe. The good humour in the room was infectious, and Harry felt himself laughing along with them, laughing for what felt the first time in centuries. "And to think that you were the one to find her, Harry! Chance does work in strange ways, strange ways indeed."

"Not so strange when yeh think about it," Hagrid chuckled. " "Shoulda known you'd find the little tyke, and bring her home safe, what with being her da' and all…."

"oh, shite," he sighed into the sudden silence. "I shouldn'a said that, should I?" 


	6. Chapter 5

Vulgarity has long been looked down upon. Especially that relating to expletives. But there are times when no other word save an expletive would fit an occasion, and this was one of them.

Two words summed up the state of Harry's mind as the last of Hagrid's words echoed through the room.

_the** fuck??**_

Utter, cataclysmic silence had taken over the room. Even the portraits had stopped their struggling, all eyes fixed on the young Auror as he digested the news.

Harry took a deep breath, and tried to approach it rationally. "I'm her father."

Silence.

"That little girl." He pointed to Exhibit A, who was currently engaged in schlurping the chocolate off a biscuit and leaving dirty fingerprints over Dumbledore's snowy beard. "Me. Her. Father."

More silence, nodding heads.

"Snape is her father, and I am her father. Can someone please explain to me what the HELL is going on? Because last time I took biology you need a _woman_ to have a baby!" his voice was spiralling higher and higher in insane panic. "And I sure as hell didn't sleep with anyone except Snape in the past five years so can someone explain to me how the _fuck_ I CAN BE HER FATHER???" He'd burst out of his chair by this stage in a ball of uncontrollable emotions, finger still pointed accusingly, voice loud enough to wake the dead.

"Harry – " Dumbledore tried, but he wasn't listening, he was stalking back and forth across the carpet, eyes bulging, mind screaming in denial and paranoia flowing full force.

"God this has to be some sort of sick joke. Some sick fucking joke. Did he tell you I was her father? What did he do, go knock up some bitch and tell you these lies? Where the hell is the greasy bastard? I'll tear him apart for this!" He was lunging for the door, murder on his mind.

"Petrificus Totalus!" he'd barely heard the words before he was falling over, limbs locked in a full body bind.

"Shouldna done that," Hagrid's abashed tones echoed through the anger clouding his mind. "Not supposed to do magic an' all that."

"I think, given the circumstances we can overlook it this time. May I have my wand back please? And do put poor Harry on the couch, it can't be terribly comfortable on the floor." An abashed Hagrid handed the Headmaster back his hastily-snatched wand and easily lifted the bound Auror over to an overstuffed couch.

Dumbledore handed Araminta over to Hagrid before waving a chair over and seating himself beside the other man.

"Before either of us say anything more, I believe that a few truths should be laid forth." He leaned forward and stuffed a few cushions under Harry's stiff neck so they were at least eye to eye.

"You are indeed the father of young Araminta, a fact that was unknown to all save Severus himself until the time of the attack. As far as Severus was concerned, the topic of the father of his daughter was strictly off-limits and we respected that, although many of the staff suspected it was a potion gone awry, or a cruel parting gift from Lord Voldemort or one of his followers. None of us knew the truth until we were forced to cast a paternity spell to determine if her father had taken her in some form of vengeance upon him.

As to the mother, Severus himself carried the child to term, and gave birth to her - at great personal risk. So not only are your comments obscenely offensive, they are completely untrue." He paused, peering down at the bound man, judging the effect his words had had.

Harry stared back at him, furiously mute and Dumbledore relented enough to release his jaw.

"Where. Is. He." The words were snarled in a tight tone that had nothing to do with the constriction of his muscles.

"Severus is in the infirmary, where he has been since the attack." Dumbledore's voice was sharp with reproval. "And I have no intention of letting you anywhere near him in his current condition with these thoughts of violence." With great control he brought his wand around and rested it in his lap, wrapping both his hands around it. There was a moment of silence, and when he spoke again it was in a cold, sharp tone Harry had never heard from the man before.

"I do realise this has been a shock to you, but I did expect better from you, of all people. You are capable of rational thought and this anger and these unfounded accusations do nothing but belittle the regard that I once held for you." All the anger in the world was nothing compared to the deep disgusted disappointment in his tone. "Now if I release you, you have two choices. One will be to behave like a mature man who has been given a precious gift and the chance to know it rather than a spoiled child throwing a tantrum, the other is to leave the castle without delay and not return. Choose carefully, Mr. Potter. Any attacks or slandering of Severus _will not be tolerated._"

Harry stared down at the Headmaster's lap, where his hands were gripping the wand with such ferocity his knuckles had turned white. And for the first time in his life he was honestly afraid of the older man, and what he was capable of. They'd always wondered what it would take to push Dumbledore too far and it looked like he'd finally found out.

His eyes moved to where Hagrid stood behind the headmaster. There was no support for his anger in the half-giant's eyes, just a tight-lipped worry and despair.

And finally, he looked at the toddler scooped up in the huge arms, the tiny hand wrapped around a hunk of bushy beard. The cause and reason of all this. She wasn't crying at his anger. She wasn't frightened of him. Then again, why would she be? She knew where she was, safe and protected by great physical strength and magic.

And he was her father.

The idea was sidling into his mind by stages, too much to take in one swallow. He chewed it up into single word sentences.

Him.

Father.

Her.

Snape….

It was that last that broke the stalemate. He was a father. A father of Snape's child. That little girl was his. He still couldn't swallow the idea, but he knew if he walked away now he would never know. Would spend the rest of his miserable cowardly life wondering what _could_ have been, even if it did turn out to be hell.

"I'll stay."

Dumbledore searched his face for a long moment, before nodding. "Good." He released the body bind and helped Harry to his feet. "There's a great deal to do today, a great deal and no mistake! But I think, perhaps, that you should get a good sleep in first. Although young Araminta looks as though she has had a good nights rest, the same cannot be said for you!"

Harry opened his mouth to protest and Dumbledore popped a lolly into it. "Don't argue with me dear boy, you look like something Mrs. Norris dragged in."

Harry chewed reflexively and felt a lassitude take over his muscles. His eyes widened in stunned anger. The old fart had drugged him! One of the oldest damn tricks in the book and he had fallen for it like an idiot child. He reached out, but his motions were slow and clumsy, eyes heavily lidded until he was looking out onto a world of indistinct shadows.

"Hagrid will take you to your room," he dimly heard the Headmaster's voice. "I promise Harry, we will answer all your questions – after you've slept."

Then his eyes closed completely and the darkness took over. 


	7. Chapter 6

He was having a conversation he'd had four years ago, wrapped in the comforting haze of a dream.

Severus was much better than a pillow, he'd decided. Pillows weren't warm to the touch. Pillows weren't so comfortably firm, pillows didn't smell so good, or resound with the soft beat of a living heart. You couldn't rest your head on a pillow and wrap your legs around it at the same time. You couldn't bathe with a pillow – well you could, but they weren't good for much afterwards. A pillow couldn't make you whimper. A pillow couldn't make you scream. You couldn't nibble on a pillow's ear, or taste the fine sheen of sweat on a pillow's nipple. Or…

Oops. He was doing it again.

"Merlin's balls," the voice from above rumbled through the chest under his head. "Don't you ever bloody stop, you little hedonist?"

"mm…" Harry lazily rubbed himself against the other mans leg. "I'm a teenaged male. We're famed for it."

"You don't have to tell me.." Snape groaned and slapped a hand over his eyes. "Why oh why did you tell me that when I have to teach a room full of the little bastards first thing this morning? The idea of Neville Longbottom engaged in carnal activities is enough to turn my stomach."

Harry chuckled. "I don't think you have to worry about that, Sev. You're safe, he's a girl-only kind of man."

"It gets worse and worse!" Snape groaned. "Procreating Longbottoms. And the little bugger will probably have one of those families that is fruitful and multiplies. Thousands upon thousands of little Longbottoms wreaking havoc across the globe, losing their wretched toads and dressing me in lace-trimmed dresses and revolting vulture hats."

"And crimson handbags, don't forget the crimson handbag." Harry chipped in

"Oh, I don't mind the handbag. It goes well with my robes." Harry rolled onto his back, howling with laughter. "What, you don't think I can pull off crimson?" the careful affrontry was completely fake, and they both knew it.

"Oh no, I like the handbag. I think you should go with the handbag," Harry sniggered. "But I think you should seriously consider that vulture hat – it matches your nose – AAAAAK!"

Snape had grabbed Harry and rolled them over on the decadently large bed, sheets sliding obscenely under their naked bodies until he was on top, the younger man's hands pinned above his head, faces bare inches apart.

"Are you showing cheek, boy?" He hissed in his most masterful voice at the delightfully shivering form beneath him. "Are you daring to talk back to me?"

"You know I am." Harry arched up and bit the potions master's collarbone, delighting in the low growl that resulted.

"Ohh no. no no no no no." With great difficulty, Snape prised himself free. "Enough of that for now. You may be a teenaged male, but I'm not. And I have to sit through a seminar on potions this afternoon."

Harry pouted, but relented, waiting until the other man had sprawled on his back before resuming his favourite Sev-pillow cuddling position. "You could blow it off."

"No I can't, I'm one of the speakers. And given this schools predilection for letting things lapse in the areas of transfiguration and dark arts, at least _one_ subject has to stay on the cutting edge of magic."

"mmm…" he drew lazy patterns on the chest underneath him. "You know, you never did tell me why you want the DADA position so badly."

There was silence for a long while, and looking up he saw the question had surprised the older man. "I would have thought that you of all people would have seen why, Mr. Potter. Defense against the Dark Arts is taught by optimists and fools. Grindylows and HinkyPunks – they're nothing more than idiot fears! What good does teaching about them do to protect the children against a true dark mage? It's the same idiot thinking that left us wide open to Voldemort in the first place. Now get off me, I need to find at least three articles of clothing you haven't ripped, chewed, or ejaculated over for the seminar."

Harry grumbled, but moved, sprawling lazily on the bed and happily watching an extremely naked Severus Snape stalk across the stone floor and bend over, burrowing in a trunk for clothes. The sight of that backside brought about a whole new set of thoughts that he put hastily to one side to enjoy later, staring up at the ceiling instead.

Few people saw the side of Severus Snape that he'd come to know so well. The man wrapped himself in a cloak deeper than the robes he wore, content with people seeing simply what they wanted to see instead of what was truly there. But there was a darkness in Snape that unnerved him. It repelled and drew him in for the same reasons. A reflection of the darkness inside himself. A potentiality, a knowledge of what you could do, what you never dared to do but were sometimes forced to. A huge swelling darkness, deep inside, knowing that that only a thin veneer of control held it back, and every time you were forced to use it, the terror that you would never be able to close that door again…

And it excited him too.

"Lazing about again, Potter?" That voice wasn't helping either. A fully clad Snape appeared in his vision, looking positively predatory in his customary black robes. Harry crossed his eyes and lazily twisted his hips, waving his semi-erection at the other man, poking out his tongue tauntingly.

And nearly bit it clean off as a warm mouth engulfed his cock.

"Gnear!" he encouraged, hands reaching down to tangle in black hair. Long-fingered hands entangled with his and pinned them down at his sides, the other man's weight shifting to pin him further, leaving him helpless to that masterful tongue.

Snape teased him mercilessly, moist lips suckling oh-so-gently, his tongue tickling the very tip as he took more and more down his throat with maddening slowness, shifting tactics, the entire length of his tongue undulating against him, then darting back for quick, flicking touches as he drew his head back before taking him deeper. Harry hit the edge again and again, and finally was pinned there, every muscle in his body clenched in delight….

And then Snape withdrew him completely.

Harry mewled helplessly, hips jerking, teetering on the edge but unable to fall.

He could hear Severus' soft laughter in the background.

"You bastard!" he choked out and clawed blindly, hooking his fingers around a handful of black robes and yanking Snape down on top of him, thrusting blindly, humping against the other man's groin, the feeling of soft velvet delightfully obscene against his hypersensitive cock

And then he _did_ fall. Screaming happily all the way. Boneless, he collapsed back onto the bed, hand still entangled in black robes.

"You.." he panted. "Are an evil, sadistic…."

"Buggerfuck," Snape swore. "That was my last clean robe."

"Dobby is here! Dobby has clean robes and breakfast for Mister Harry Potter!"

Harry twitched in his sleep. House elves? In his erotic dreams? Not bloody likely. He reached out for Snape but the other man was already fading, melting back into the realm of dreams and memories, as he awoke and his hands closed over nothing but a handful of rumpled duvet. 


	8. Chapter 7

The room was too hot and the bed was too empty. Harry's hand roamed forlornly across the other side of the bed, finally clenching on the unslept pillow beside him. "Sev..?" Still half-caught in dreams, he pushed himself upright, duvet puddling in his lap. Sev - SHIT!"

He nearly jumped clean off the bed at the site of two large eyes watering at him. "Dobby!"

The house elf sniffled at him. "Harry Potter is calling for Professor Snape," he warbled. "But Professor Snape is not here…" Dobby's huge eyes welled up with tears and he pulled his oversized ears down under his chin, wailing in distress.

"Ohhh is a terrible thing that happened to poor Professor Snape, Harry Potter!" he howled. "Is a terrible, terrible black day in Hogwarts when they found him so hurt and the little baby gone."

"Hurt?" Now his mind was back in focus, he realised a point he'd missed the first time around. Snape had been hurt. And badly - he'd once seen his onetime lover claw to his feet to stand and fight under curses that should have had him writhing on the floor in agony. Had seen him grip and raise his wand with a hand that had every bone in it shattered - and this was only when the school, when his students were in danger! He didn't want to think of what it would take to keep the man away from his own flesh and blood.

Shoving the bedclothes aside, running on pure gut instinct he was across in the room in an instant, hand gripping the doorhandle.

Which refused to turn.

"Oh for fuck's sake…" he reached for his wand and realised he was naked. Snatching up the robes from Dobby's hands he threw them over his head and grabbed his wand from the bedside table. "Alohomora!"

The door refused to open.

His lips formed a tight line. He wasn't a child anymore, and he knew spells a lot more powerful than those a first year was capable of performing.

"Glasnost!"

Still nothing.

Harry gave it a good kick and yelped as bare toes stubbed on the unyielding wood. "What's going on here, Dobby? Why am I locked in?"

Dobby blinked up at him with his huge eyes. "Professor Dumbledore said that Harry Potter was to sleep undisturbed," he volunteered.

"I'll bet he did." Harry ran his hands over the mantelpiece, the turned, surveying the room. There was no floo powder, despite the roaring fire bringing the room to almost suffocating levels of heat, and although he was used to apparating willy-nilly, the wards around Hogwarts prevented him from doing so. And no doubt the windows had also been warded to prevent his escape. Someone had also thoughtfully healed his shoulder, he noticed.

"So Dobby took away the floo powder and locked the doors and windows with special elf charms!" Dobby finished proudly. "Harry Potter is a great wizard! Great and powerful and wise and kind! But only Dobby can open the doors because only Dobby knows the password."

Harry stared at a small stool by the fireplace and briefly considered picking it up and committing a minor act of homicide.

"Professor Dumbledore said Harry Potter was far too tired and thin to help people, so Dobby decided that Harry Potter is to eat four pieces of toast before he can leave his room." The house elf continued to look insufferably pleased with himself. "Professor Dumbledore said he will send up a student to take Harry Potter down for breakfast when he is ready."

Inwardly, Harry cursed Dumbledore. The old headmaster knew that while he would argue, dodge, or outright hex an adult to get to Snape and some answers, he wouldn't so much as cause trouble for a child.

Wait a minute - "Breakfast? How long have I been asleep?"

"Harry Potter has slept for a very long time." Dobby informed him. "Is now tomorrow - Dobby thinks Harry Potter must have been very, very tired indeed."

Harry would have growled something at the House Elf, but his stomach beat him to it. With a sigh, he sank into the chair Dobby pulled out for him and stared at the mountain of toast and preserves on the table in front of him. He _was_ hungry, truth be told. "How's Winky?" he asked politely, buttering a piece of toast, resigned to his fate.

"Winky is at home with Toshi and Pata. Toshi and Pata are Dobby and Winky's children." he smiled proudly. "Winky is special elf to Dobby now. Winky is one hot elf, but Dobby was unable to be a good husband." His grin widened. "But Professor Snape made Dobby a potion, and Winky got pregnant with twins, first time!"

Harry choked on his toast.

* * *

To his amazement, Harry had put away no less than eight pieces of toast before there was a knock on the door. He hadn't felt so hungry in years or - truth to tell - so well rested.

Dobby nodded approvingly at him as he stomped into his boots and straightened his robes, then went over to the door.

"Winky!" he said and Harry kicked himself. If he'd bothered to think for three seconds instead of charging in half-cocked he would have been able to work out an obvious password like THAT.

Severus had always said that having his brains located in his groin was bound to affect his mental faculties.

Severus…

Pushing past the beaming house elf, he pulled the door open. A first year Hufflepuff stood there, fidgeting nervously and at the sight of Harry his eyes widened.

"Wow, you're really him!" the boy stared up at him with an awe-struck expression. "You're Harry Potter - the greatest Auror alive! You defeated Lord Voldemort! I've got a wizard card of you, you know. I got it in one of my chocolate frogs."

Harry let out a mumble, feeling his ears turn red. He wondered if the boy was related somehow to the Creevey's

"Excuse me sir….but I was wondering….Could you sign my card? I have a quill here somewhere…" the blush spread from his ears along his cheekbones to meet in the middle of his face as Harry hurriedly scribbled something on the back of the card and handed it back.

"Wow! _Brilliant!_" the kid tucked the card safely away in his pocket and stuck out a hand. "My name's Michael. Michael Dennis. You're my new hero now, much better than Sagara Monflathers the Quidditch player. He used to be my favourite but when I asked him for his autograph he didn't even look at me. You're a lot nicer than he is. And he didn't defeat Lord Voldemort!"

Harry's blush deepened and they set off down the stairs. It was odd, hearing that name out of the mouth of a freckle-faced twelve year old. He'd gotten used to hearing "You-know-who" or "He who shall not be named" or - a personal favourite - "That snake faced bastard" as Sirius had said on more than one occasion.

Mind you, he'd been talking about _Snape_ at the time.

Snape, Snape, Snape. His thoughts kept chasing back to Severus Snape. Worry chewed at his gut, mixed with longing and shame.

_I'm tired of this. I'm tired of **you**_

He couldn't even remember what had started it.

_It was just a fuck. Get that, **SNAPE?** Just. A. Fuck._

It had spiralled out of control, they'd both said things they hadn't meant. It all went bad too fast. The pressure had finally gotten to them both.

_And I don't need that any more. I'm beyond childish crushes and idiot games._

Until he'd said those final, unforgiveable words

_You are nothing to me._

Damned pride had stopped him going back. Stopped him apologising. Pride and a childish streak he'd claimed he'd outgrown insisting that if Snape wanted him, he knew where to find him.

_Pale face paler than ever, long fingers clenched around a robe._

Except he didn't, did he? He'd burrowed himself deep in the ministry - they'd snapped him right up. Down into the deepest levels, the deepest training. No owls, no communication with the outside world. He'd lost contact with friends, family. Ron, Hermione, Sirius - they'd all become just names to him during that time, just names he quickly forgot during his training, focused on survival.

_Get out._

And once they were closed, he'd never bothered to open the lines of communication back up.

_GET OUT!_

God he was an idiot.

Dead silence broke across the hall as they entered, then smashed into raucous applause. Michael darted off to the Hufflepuff table, proudly waving his autographed card to all that would look, leaving Harry alone in the spotlight.

Even the Slytherin were cheering him. The returning hero who'd brought home their lost lamb. The walk to the teacher's table had never seemed so long to him as his eyes swept across the room, cheering face after cheering face making him cringe.

There were a few faces he recognised from his last few years at Hogwarts - particularly Gillian LeMort, who'd been an avid fan of the Gryffendor Quidditch team, and its Seeker in particular. She seemed to spend most of her fourth year making cow eyes as he recalled. Now that she was a seventh year, the cow eyes were even bigger.

Feeling horribly exposed, Harry kept his head down and hastily took the vacant seat at the Teachers' table beside Hagrid. Looking around, he saw no sign of Snape or his daughter - or Dumbledore come to think of it. McGonagall was standing in the headmaster's place, looking more dignified than ever, if that was possible. The hubbub of noise gradually died down to complete silence as she stood, hundreds of expectant faces peering up at them.

"Good morning everyone, I trust you slept well. As you are all well aware, Araminta Snape was returned to us, safe and sound yesterday morning, by none other than Harry Potter." Harry cringed as the hall broke out once again into cheers, and wondered if anyone would notice if he hid under the table.

Fortunately, McGonagall noticed his discomfort. "Mister Potter will be staying here for some time, as I understand it. I ask that you all behave with the dignity accorded to you as students of Hogwarts, and do not pester him. And now, breakfast."

She seated herself and the tables filled themselves. Scrumptious foods of all descriptions, but Harry found his appetite had disappeared entirely. He kept looking about, past the scraping of spoons and normal background noise of breakfast, trying to see some sign of Snape or Dumbledore without luck.

"Do try the blueberry muffins Harry, they're quite delicious." Harry jerked back as a plate was wafted under his nose and turned to find himself face to face with Sybil Trelawney, the Divinations teacher.

"Uh..thanks…" he took the plate and mindlessly put it down in front of Hagrid, who made a delighted noise.

"…ooh thank yeh Harry. Don't mind if I do…."

"Albus is in the infirmary, working with Madame Pomfrey," Trelawney informed him.

"How did you - "

"The curtain parts for those who truly desire to see.." the Divinations teacher chewed slowly on a muffin. For the first time it seemed she had Harry's full attention, and she intended to milk it for all it was worth.

And for once, Harry was willing to pander to her. Anything for news of Severus. "How is he? What happened?"

Trelawney put her muffin down with almost insolent slowness. "As well as can be expected, given what happened. Poor, poor Severus. This affair started in anger, we can only hope it will not end in tears."

"Started in anger?" Harry was hooked now, and he knew it. Didn't care, either. "How did it start? What happened, Madame? Tell me, please." He would have gone down on his knees and begged if that was what she wanted.

Ever the dramatic, Trelawney picked up her teacup, rocking it gently in her hands. "It started with a meal…much like this one in fact…"

Trelawney raised an eyebrow as Snape piled yet another muffin onto his plate. The man really had been acting oddly lately, wavering between stuffing his face at every given opportunity, or worshipping the toilets at odd hours. Quite, quite strange.

"Dear me Severus, that is rather a lot of food you have there," she joked gently, leaning forwards to pat his stomach. "Is the little one hungry again?"

She felt the slight movement at the same time as Snape jerked back as if stung, flinging his body away from her hand. "How did you know?" there was near-panic in his eyes as he cast quick, frantic glances around the table.

Trelawney felt her jaw drop in sheer astonishment, but she quickly recovered. "My inner eye shows me many things unseen to man," she intoned gracefully, mind working insanely behind deceptively placid eyes. She knew damn well what she'd felt under her palm in that brief instant. _pregnant? SNAPE?_ Surprisingly enough she accepted the idea easily, the realm of the impossible and dream-like very much her own, and her astonishment quickly turned to sheer delight. _Oh, a child, what a wonderful thing…_

Snape felt the burning of completely opposite emotions in his belly. The mad old bat hadn't known anything at all, and he was so wound up that a simple comment had him blabbing his secret.

Unseen, his hands clenched to fists under the table.

Smiling at Snape, Trelawney reached for his discarded teacup. "Let me do a reading for you, my dear Severus," she purred, swirling it gently in her hands. "I can see your child - ahh, it's a little girl! She will live a long and healthy life, much loved by both her parents - "

Her mystical reading was cut short as Snape tore the cup from her hand.

"Really Severus I wasn't - " The Divinations teacher looked up and despite herself drew back in fear. She had never seen Snape looking so utterly furious and dangerous as he did right now.

"I have no time for your fancies and play-games Trelawney," he hissed. "I can give you a viewing on this child that you seem incapable of seeing. This…THING is a _mistake._ Nothing more. It is a mistake almost as large as believing that sexual relations with its father " - the word was spat with such vehement hatred that Trelawney flinched - "would be more pleasurable than smearing my genitalia with fish paste and immersing in a tank of clawfish. "

Standing, he pulled his robes around him with biting motions and strode out of the room.

Trelawney sat there for a long moment, a hand to her mouth in shock. Her gaze fell on the discarded teacup and it changed to one of utter horror.

Trelawney knew her skills were mocked by those who could not see what she could. And while there were moments that the fates had to be courted with the proper respect garnered from dimly formed truths, there were more often truths revealed by spirits beyond the veil, and those truths had to be imparted, no matter what the cost.

Snatching up the cup, she scurried after the departing Potions master, fear clutching her heart.

* * *

The Divinations teacher caught up with Snape in the Long Hall, catching his arm between the Arithmancy and DADA classrooms. Tugging on his arm, disregarding the look of utter fury on his face she almost begged him to listen to her, pushing the teacup into his face. "The dark mark!" she almost wailed, beside herself with frantic worry for Snape and his unborn child. "Here! In the cup. He will come for your child, the dark lord, Severus please, you must - "

Once again Snape wrenched the ill-fated teacup from her hand. With a sudden burst of fury he turned and smashed it against the wall. "Poking, prying, woman you will stick to your predictions of smoke, mirrors and bovine excrement and STAY OUT OF MY BUSINESS!" Turning, he stalked down the hall, fury erupting from every pore, a chorus of shocked voices and brave heads poking out classroom doors following his progress, drawn by the shouts.

"Dark things I saw that day…" Trelawney shook her head mournfully, oversized earrings jangling with the motion. "Dark things indeed. " She heaved a sigh, resting one hand dramatically on her breast. "Still, Araminta is safe now, the prophecy was fulfilled and - " she stopped short.

Harry had vanished. 


	9. Chapter 8

He was literally torn in two. Escape, always escape, running away, out into the hall, past the faces, past the glory, past the awful truth. Part of him, a panicked, desperate part was screaming to go to Severus, to make it better some how. 

The other, darker part of him, the part that had had grown in betrayal and secrecy, fattened on the darkness during his years as an Auror knew in exquisite detail what such a foolish urge would bring.

_He doesn't want you. He doesn't want the child_

And what did he expect? A voice inside him he'd thought long dead and buried had tried to convince him that it would all be ok, that there was nothing to it, all it would take was for Severus to see him again and it would all heal miraculously, it would all melt away and they could go back to what they had.

And it had been wrong.

_This…THING is a _mistake.

He felt his stomach clench and rebel. How could anyone say that. And of a child? An innocent, just like the dozens he had failed to save, the dozens of tiny, perfect faces smiling at him from endlessly moving pictures, the tiny bodies twisted in death. Wanted children. Loved children. Why was she the one that was saved? Why save one out of all the others who was considered a mistake? Why was the one he had saved the one he had failed, all her life?

Why hadn't he been there? Why hadn't Severus told him? Why did he feel this way? Why did he find these feelings, like something hidden behind a rotting log, these feelings, this love, this thing he'd left behind, dead and gone, why did he find them still here, in his mind, in his heart? Why couldn't he make it all better, make it the way it was?

Tears, hot and bitter scalded down his cheeks and he pressed his face into the cool stone of the wall. His hands beat a lone note on the unforgiving rock, mind screaming a single question.

WHY

* * *

It was a worried, weary, and above all **hungry** Albus Dumbledore that slowly made his way down the corridor from the medical wing. It seemed of late that all they did was to trade one worry for another. And when that concerned was allayed, another rose to take its place. He stroked his beard, feeling the grease that had built up in it, the chocolate crumbles from eager toddler hands. A simple cleaning spell would suffice, but what he craved most was a long soak in a hot tub. A long soak, a good meal, and a dreamless sleep. The first two were easy to achieve. The last, alas, was not so simple.

So intent was he on his musings that he almost walked past the figure hunched in a cul-de-sac, hands pressed desperately to the timeless stone, as if seeking an anchor from insanity, shoulders shuddering with wrenching tears that threatened to become screams.

"Harry!" Very much taken aback, the headmaster hurried forwards and turned the shaking figure into his arms. Truth to tell, he had been expecting this, but not so soon! The boy had been running the thin edge for so long a fall was inevitable, but surely it would take something other than a simple meal to trip him.

The Boy Who Lived was white as a corpse, eyes darting about at nothing, hands clenched so tightly that beads of blood appeared where his nails had broken through the skin of his palms. He was ice cold and shaking, sure signs of shock.

Dumbledore looked about, hands resting against the other man's forearms, steadying him. What Harry needed most right now was somewhere warm and safe, far from prying eyes. Rumour easily ran rife through the school, flittering from ear to ear, sometimes it seemed, without even the benefit of lips. Certainly without the benefit of brains, but the last thing they needed was for some enterprising student to put two and two together and get four.

Wrapping his arms a little more tightly around the younger man, he gently urged him up the stairs and to his own office. Once safely inside, he swiftly settled Harry into a comfortable chair by the fire and watched him worriedly. While letting emotions bleed free was a good thing, this was not the time, not the place, and the young man was making himself sick.

A calming potion soon had Harry back in control, hands jerking over his face to mop it dry, the tracks of tears still stark, but for now, abated. He sat there for a long moment, staring into the fire, battles of some fierce war raging behind his eyes.

Dumbledore proffered a cup of tea. Sometimes that was all you could do.

Harry took it without enthusiasm, letting it lie limp in his hands. "He hates us.." he whispered.

"Who does?"

The cup of tea spilled onto the floor as Harry finally tore his eyes away from the fire. "The pope, who do you think I mean??"

"The pope? Who is the pope? Why does he hate you?" of course, he'd found being deliberately obtuse also helped matters along.

"Not the pope, the pope is a muggle. Severus. Severus hates me." Distress drove his muscles and he pushed himself out of the chair, pacing the office in quick, nervous steps. "He _hates_ me!"

"Has he told you this?" The headmaster's voice was calm, but there were shadows of worry behind the kindly eyes.

"He didn't have to…" Harry sank back into his seat, cradling his head in his hands. "He didn't want this. He doesn't want this child - I spoke to Professor Trelawney, she said that when he found out Snape said it was nothing but a mistake - that we were nothing but a mistake…he hates our child…he hates me..."

"ah." Dumbledore relaxed a little. "Harry, I can assure you Severus does not hate your daughter."

"But he said - Professor Trelawney told me -"

"Sibyl simply told you the start of the story." Dumbledore said mildly. "A story does not end where it starts - or even where it does end. Would the Professor Snape she began to tell you of have borne a child he hated so much? Would he have raised her to be loved? Surely the Severus Snape Professor Trelawney told you of would have handed his hated, unwanted 'mistake' child gladly over to the Death Eaters rather than them forcing them to rip her from the unconscious arms of his beaten body - "

"He wouldn't have done that!" Harry burst out angrily, "Not to a child!"

"Ahh, so you do know the real Severus after all." The headmaster got to his feet and patted Harry gently on the head. "Let me show you something my dear boy…" padding over to the black cabinet behind his onetime student, he pulled out a stone bowl, silver thoughts flickering in its depths. Seating himself once more he settled it down on the desk between them.

"Severus was very disturbed when he first discovered his condition, I will admit you that...." Rocking the stone bowl gently in his hands, he peered into the pensieve. "Let me see….ah yes…" teasing a single strand to the surface, he beckoned Harry closer. "Let's have a look at the next part of our little tale…."

Snape burst into the headmaster's office, books flying everywhere as the door slammed back on its hinges with such force it actually cracked the ancient stone.

"Do come in, Severus," Dumbledore said mildly.

Snape stalked angrily forwards, robes fluttering midnight black like the wings of some giant bird of prey as he bore down on the older man, yanking forward a chair and throwing himself into it, every motion screaming with wrath.

Dumbledore retaliated by pushing a small cherry-coloured bowl forward. "Gumdrop?"

Snape stared at the gregarious little face beaming benevolently at him and felt something inside him crack. Shaking, he lowered his face into his palms, scrubbing roughly against his cheeks. He'd had enough. Too much, the anger that had kept him going so far had melted away, leaving him clinging to bare shreds of sanity. He hadn't cried in years. At first it was the sullen refusal of a boy forced too fast to be a man to give into childish tantrums and wasted tears, in later years it became a wall that had to be maintained, a shield against the horrors and sorrows he had seen, the simple knowledge that if he let the tears loose now, they would never stop.

He could feel them now, beating at the walls. And the face he finally raised to Dumbledore was that of a man who had flown over hell.

"I'm pregnant. Merlin help me, I'm pregnant, Albus."

Dumbledore considered his next words very carefully. They would, after all, determine the path this entire conversation, an indeed the future would take. Congratulations did not look in order, although Severus might indeed desperately need the support they would bring. The who, although pertinent was a question best left for later. And as for the how….well, best to take things one step at a time.

Dumbledore beamed. "My dear boy, are you sure?"

"Of course I'm bloody sure." The voice was dull, lifeless. "It's been two months. The signs are quite evident, even to a blind man."

Ahh. Tact was called for.

"There was no Mrs. Snape as I recall…" Dumbledore said delicately.

"No." Severus echoed dully. Just a mister Snape, and another mister Snape - as Dumbledore was well aware. His other father had died giving birth to Severus himself - he only knew the man from various photos of an honest smile and a handsome face - which, come to think of it, bore an unsettling resemblance to one Harry Potter.

He felt a hollow laugh beating at his ribs, tumbling with the rising insanity. Love, thy name is Oedipus.

There was a silence from the other man. Dumbledore was turning the information over in his mind, he knew. Looking at angles, at courses to proceed on. Not that he would mention half of them, the old wizard would sit there until Snape came up with a resolution of his own - which was NOT what he needed. He needed someone to tell him a way out, a way to make it better. Just a way to make it stop.

"Severus." He looked up to find kindly eyes looking worriedly at him. "I feel that this pregnancy is…unwanted. No doubt in your work you have become familiar with certain….herbs which can be used…" the headmaster let the sentence trail off, firmly crushing down any sign of his own distress. This was not his decision to make -

Snape exploded out of his chair, nostrils tight and lips drawn back in a full-throated snarl. "Are you saying I should kill this child?" he couldn't tell where this fury had come from - especially from him, of all people! - but there it was, howling from within.

Dumbledore remained composed, a veritable rock. "It is a hard decision, Severus, but it is one that many women have made -"

"Many women can make it for themselves but I will not make it!" Snape was pacing again, one hand flexing and curling in agitation, the other unconsciously rubbing his stomach

"So...You do want this child."

"Yes...No…" Snape collapsed back into the chair and stared at his hands, hair falling down in a black curtain around his pale features.

Dumbledore folded his hands placidly in front of him. "It seems a simple enough question to me Severus, let me put this to you another way. Do you wish to be a father?"

That one, at least, was easier to answer. "Yes."

"Do you wish to be one now?"

A longer pause, but an honest answer at least, and a promising one.

"Yes."

"Then I see no problem with your pregnancy Severus, perhaps it's with the father of the child?"

Ahh, he'd struck a nerve there, Snape was once more on his feet and pacing furiously. "Do **not** ask me that question Albus, it is one I will **not** answer. The father is immaterial, he is gone, without return, and has no bearing on this matter. Do not press me, I will not answer anything more on this."

"Then I won't." Acceptance. It was oddly soothing. He'd expected at least a token protest. The mild tone turned sudden steel. "But there is one thing I must ask you Severus, and I will hold you to the truth on this. _Is the child Lord Voldemorts?_"

"No. And I hold to the truth on that." The voice was clear, but the eyes held overtones of worry, overtones that cleared at the headmasters next words.

"Then I believe you."

Snape collapsed into chair once more, like a puppet with its strings cut. That was it. A path was set, his road was chosen, all the simpering metaphors one could bring to mind. He would bear this child. But somehow, he couldn't believe it was that simple, that easy, and he said so.

Albus beamed at him, the daft old Headmaster once more. "I find that matters tend complicate themselves well enough without our interference. Let's just take this as it goes, and deal with any other matters as they occur, mm?"

"I'm not apologising to Trelawney."

"My dear boy, I believe that if you did the shock would be far too much for her to take." Dumbledore took the potions master by the arm and gently ushered him out of the room.

"And I'm not giving up my classes." Snape held to as they made their way down the gently revolving staircase.

"Of course not, it would be a great loss to our students to lose such a fine teacher. Only the other day Madame Maxine was saying to me how she wished that the potions master at Beau-Baxtons had such a mastery of the art…"

Snape shot the older man a suspicious glance. "You're buttering me up for something."

"Of course I am." Dumbledore beamed at him. "Now, I think it's time we paid Madam Pomfrey a visit…"


	10. Chapter 9

  
  
Reality filtered around them, seeping through the memory. Harry slowly drew back, blinking. He knew what the Headmaster was trying to do, assuage his worry, ease his soul, but somehow, he just felt worse. 

Trelawney's story wound around Dumbledores and he felt hollow, as if someone had scraped his insides clean. Severus had known. With his unusual parentage he had known there was a chance. There were wards, spells that could be used to stop such a thing happening and _he hadn't used them._ Not from stupidity or carelessness on Snape's part, he knew. The other man was far too careful to be that rash.

Which meant he wanted to be pregnant. Wanted to bear Harry's child, to give him the deepest, most precious gift he could bestow. Severus had, indeed, given his heart to Harry.

And Harry had smashed it on the floor with the unthinking cruelty of a spoiled brat and never looked back.

"Harry Potter is a great wizard! Great and powerful and wise and kind!" Dobby's words echoed through his mind and he lowered his head in shame. Harry Potter wasn't great, or wise, or even kind.

Harry Potter was a bloody idiot.

"He hates me." The same words again, but different. Not the whine of a child against some imagined wrong, but the soft words of a man who knew his actions.

And accepted the consequences.

"I don't blame him…" the last was whispered off.

"Why?" Dumbledore peered at Harry over the shimmering surface of the pensieve. "Are you intending to make him fall in love with you and then leave again?"

"No!" Harry reared back and nearly fell, luckily there was a chair behind him.

"Then I don't see what the problem is! Harry, Severus hates the you that was you when you last separated. He doesn't hate the you you are now - how could he? He doesn't know the person you have become. What Severus dislikes right now is a memory, a notion, and the wonderful thing about notions is that they can be completely swept away by a new set of experiences and memories." He picked up his pensieve and put it away in the cupboard, puttering over to a tray by the fire. "Tea?"

Harry reached up and rubbed his scar, fingers tracing over the brand in a motion repeated thousands of times. Would he go back to Severus? Could he make it all right, make it what it was? There was too much passed and lost between them, he didn't even know where to begin. He'd not only burned the bridge, he'd watched it drop into the river, followed it downstream, then pissed on the embers.

"Do you think…Is there a chance?" He'd thought hope had been beaten out of him long ago, but there it was, tremulous wings fluttering against his ribcage. "Can I…can _we_…"

Dumbledore took pity on his stumbling speech and sat down beside him, gently patting his knee. "There was obviously a great deal of good in the relationship if Severus thought it safe to bear a child –" he avoided Harry's by-now automatic cringe "- and that will never fade. It's like that muggle law of energy – completely irrelevant but the words do hold some meaning to love. Severus is not a man who gives his love or trust easily, it's an incredibly rare gift that few have earned. You earned that, young Harry, and even if something has…happened between you to make him believe that gift was ill-given, it's not one he can easily take back. Even if he believes he can. And at the very least young Araminta has the right to know both her parents."

Harry let out a sigh that felt like it took half his body with it. Pressures that kept arguing they were valid kept dissolving under the other man's cheerful logic, leaving him with a vaguely disquieting feeling. "I have to say...you're taking this incredibly well."

"You will find, my dear boy, that when you reach my age there is very little left to shock you."

"I thought the saying went "very little to fear."

"Very little to fear? Poppycock! There's always plenty of things to fear. I myself live in perpetual dread that the house elves may someday mislay my favourite pair of earmuffs. The ones Poppy likes so much."

Harry stared. He couldn't help it. It was the reaction many people had to the headmaster, even the ones who knew him. Dumbledore beamed an idiots grin at him.

"You do realise that I was still a **student** when all this happened."

"And seventeen, I've no doubt. Severus has no taste for raping underage boys."

"Sixteen, actually, although you're right, he refused to do anything..._physical_ until I was of age. And he was still my teacher…."

"Unless you'd dropped potions – which I know you hadn't, a score of 94, respectable indeed, congratulations by the way – yes, he was. My dear boy," He laughed at the sheer befuddled look on the other man's face. "It happens far often than one single boy falling for his potions master! Although we don't encourage that sort of thing, when it's between two consenting adults, the school really has no concern. I myself was in a similar position some years ago with my Herbology teacher. Mind you, Nicolas and I were far more low key!"

Harry blinked. For some reason something in his brain was sitting up and begging for attention. "Nicholas…."

"My dear boy, you know him quite well. By reputation, if not personally. Those wizarding cards really do tell a deeper truth than they know, he was my partner in more ways than one."

Harry stared blankly for a moment, then the penny dropped. "_Flamel?!_ But but but he was _married!_"

Blue eyes twinkled mischeviously at him. "Yes, he was. Not that dear Milly minded that much, in fact, she enjoyed herself immensely on more than on occasion."

Harry shook his head. Now _that_ was a mental image he did not want. He had the suspicion it would come creeping back though. Probably at about three am.

"But, this isn't getting anything done!" Dumbedore pushed himself to his feet and made a show of brushing off his robes. "You'd better get down to the infirmary young man, I believe that there is someone there you need to talk to."

"If he even wants to see my face again." the pessimism wouldn't die. "He may hate the me that was me when we parted, and not the me now….but all he knows is the me that was then." _and as completely as possible _ "He doesn't know the me now." _and I'm not sure even _I_ want to._

"Hate is just love with its back turned." Dumbledore's soft voice carried him down the stairs. "Don't forget that. Have faith, Harry."  



	11. Chapter 10

It is a little known fact that stone has memories too. And while it does not live and breathe, it has a life that spans millennia, centuries of carefully layered memories in filmed with dust and etched with acid deep into the rock itself. 

The stone remembers before Hogwarts was Hogwarts. Before the students, before the ghosts, before the headmasters, before the glory and the grandeur. Beneath even ancient portraits of great wizards come and gone the stone remembers. Remembers when they were fumbling students, taking their first steps. Remembers the ones who guided them on their way to glory, and those who taught the teachers, on and on, back and back, to where human memory dims and fades. And deeper still. The stone remembers when it was molten, running through the veins of the planet itself. Remembers the world of chaos above it, remembers the turning, the impact. Remembers when it was Solid. Resting. Immense rock faces, the foundation of the earth.

And then the hewing, forming shapes, surfaces. The triumph of man over the elements, a simple tower, the defence against the darkness, against invaders. A single man, his children, hundreds of descendants, each lord of the castle. Before muggles and wizardry split, when all knew and feared the bogles, the Old Ways, creatures and magic so fantastical that they faded beyond memory and into legend. The stone remembers.

The stone remembers the schism, wizards slowly withdrawing into a world of their own ken whilst the muggles grew stronger, adapted to their own ways to compensate for what their now feeble magic could no longer do. Power shifting, breaking away, leaving it dark and abandoned.

A century of darkness, of peace.

The stone remembers the coming of the founders. From the Moors, from the Glen, from the Valley and the Fen. Four wizards, each strong and powerful in their own right, full of hopes, full of ambitions, full of dreams of a future they would shape. The changes, the growth. New halls, new parapets, towers grown now to four. The secrets. The stone remembers the creation of the foundation of Wizardry, watched it grow, saw it split and reshape, passed through countless hands, the founders now gone.

The stone remembers time, faces, flickering by with the ephemeral fleetness of humanity, brief candles in an endless night. The stone remembers Minerva McGonagall. The stone remembers Albus Dumbledore, young students, feeling their first steps. And later, the stone remembers the opening of the chamber. The stone remembers Hagrid's disgrace, Tom Riddle's award.

Later still the stone remembers Severus Snape, Lucius Malfoy. The stone remembers Sirius Black, Lupin Remus, Peter Pettigrew. The stone remembers the fear of Lord Voldemort.

The stone remembers James Potter and Lily Evans, freckle-faced and nervous as they started their education.

And decades later, the merest breath to the castle, the stone remembers their son, Harry Potter, young, innocent, with his broken glasses and mind filled with wonder at a world he never dreamed existed.

The stone remembers.

And it watches.

After the outburst in the hall, the news of Snape's condition did not take long to spread through the school. The muggle-born and raised among them were astonished at the fact that he was male and pregnant, and were decidedly vocal about it.

Their wizard-raised counterparts, however, had much different thoughts on their mind. Having spent those oh-so-crucial formative years as children taking easily to hand things unthought of in the muggle world, they were less concerned with the _how_ than with the _who._ Rumour ran rife, ranging from Lord Voldemort, to Argus Finch, to Snape himself, although the idea of Snape both fathering and carrying his own child caused at least one fourth year Ravenclaw to get a nosebleed from the paradox.

The Slytherin were the most perturbed. Despised by other houses, stamped with infamy, they clung very closely to their own. And for the beloved head of their house - for many, a father they did not have at home - they feared the darkest of arts had been involved against him.

The ambitions to prove oneself and have power over ones own life were not the same as the ambitions to kill or control.

Several of them drifted quietly to the library. On unspoken agreement they split into two groups - the younger years to find out all that they could of what to expect in the next nine months, noting down possible dangers and discomforts, the older and more strong-stomached students venturing into the Restricted Area with passes Severus himself had written them, scanning through endless shrieking tomes for some idea of what had been done to their much-loved professor.

The portraits were all a-flutter, murmurs moving ceaselessly up and down the walls, but that was nothing compared to the commotion in the teachers lounge. At first Dumbledore's gentle announcement confirming the rumours had been met with a shocked, pale-faced silence, until he assured them the child was not Voldemort's. Then it exploded into a flurry of concern and battle plans.

Even though Voldemort was dead and gone, there was still a very real threat to Snape. There were Death Eaters who would dearly love to see him dead and dismembered, and then there were those who hated him as a Death Eater – although the latter seemed to have conveniently forgotten the fact that he had been a spy and a hero too. Then there were those who simply disliked him because he was Severus Snape. And while Snape was a powerful enough wizard in his own right, the almost tribal urge to protect the pregnant and young burned hard. Especially since they didn't know what effect a progressing pregnancy would have on his abilities.

"My sister nearly turned into a squib on her first child," Hooch's voice boomed cheerfully through the room. "Completely lost her abilities until young Shamenka was born. Mind you, on her second one she had a marked increase in power. Damn near set fire to the house trying to light a candle. Complete loss of control, we had to hide her wand from her until she popped."

"Oh dear," Professor Flitwick unconsciously rubbed his wand for security at the thought. "Poor Severus, perhaps we should assign some more house elves to tend to him? And it can't be terribly good for him down there in those dark and manky dungeons – maybe we can move him up to another floor?"

Thankfully Snape was not here to hear the flurry of what he no doubt would have termed sickening concern aimed in his direction, having been safely tucked up in the infirmary by Madam Pompfrey for a battery of tests and advice.

"I think we should best leave any drastic changes until the need arises, mm?" Albus successfully hid his wince at some of the more colourful suggestions. He just _knew_ who would be the lucky headmaster to pass them on to Severus, and while he wasn't a coward by any means, Snape was indeed a powerful wizard – and Dumbledore had heard some horrid things about hormone induced mood changes.

Sprout was busy making notes outloud of what plants should be grown for stock when they were needed, and Trelawney was once more spouting visions of doom and gloom to all that cared to hear, and even those that did not.

Minerva, unsurprisingly, had kept her head once the initial shock had worn off. Despite both she and Severus being heads of houses famed for their rivalry, the two had formed an honest working relationship built on mutual respect and almost-friendship, although she was the first to admit that the man really did get tiresome during Slytherin's seven-year winning streak. Abruptly, she wondered how many others had seen the gleeful almost-teasing streak in the other man, rather than abject piggish gloating. And how many other traits had they carefully chosen to overlook? Snape was not simply reviled outside the school. She cast her eye over several staff members, and hating herself for it all the while, made a note to speak to the headmaster privately regarding her concerns.

And after that, words to Severus himself. She was one of the few – if not the only teacher party to the potions master's parentage, and she knew the circumstances surrounding his birthing father's death. Worry gnawed at her insides, but she consoled herself with the fact that unlike Aramanthus, Severus would not be allowed to let his pride endanger his life. And the cheek of it, allowing herself to be worried when poor Severus must be beside himself at the impeding loss of his carefully preserved privacy!

The meeting concluded with very little done, as meetings often do, although Albus had sent out an owl, inviting Lupin Remus back to teach defence against the Dark Arts. He had, after some hesitation added a side note regarding Severus, and how Remus' unique talents might be of use. And although there would be some furor over having a werewolf teaching, he was sure this time it could be smoothed down. Especially since the werewolf in question was a hero in the war against Voldemort, and a key player in his demise. It would be hard for parents to complain about their children being taught by a man with his own chocolate frog Hero card.

And besides, those werewolf qualities were a key element in the decision. Not only a damned good teacher in his own right, sharper instincts, both man and wolf, would make Remus a grand addition to the security of the school, and Severus in particular.

And so, the teachers headed out into a school alive with rumours, armoured with the truth and each pondering how they would face the next class of curious faces.

The stone remembers all of this. And in the future, it will remember Harry Potter, three years later, pausing in the bare featureless corridor outside the entrance to Headmaster Dumbledore's office, taking several deep breaths in an attempt to bolster his courage before heading to the infirmary, where Snape was waiting.


	12. Chapter 11

It was still the same day, Harry realised with a jolt. Just the same day. Not even 24 hours. It had only been this morning, early morning he'd staggered into Hogsmead, Araminta in his arms. A lost child, he was returning her to her parents, that was all, just bringing her home…

That morning felt like a lifetime and a world away.

A flood of students crossed his path as he exited the featureless corridor leading to Dumbledore's office, talking excitedly amongst themselves. He drew back a little into the shadows, not wanting to deal with another heaping of misdirected hero worship.

It seemed the universe itself of late was intent on stopping him from reaching Severus. Part of him was secretly glad. After this time, after what had happened between them - a _child_ for Merlin's sake! - he didn't know what exactly it was he would do when he they were face to face. What he would say. What he _could_ say. The future was a vast chasm open in front of him and he was desperately afraid he'd fall headfirst into it, fall forever, blindly groping for a bridge that wasn't there.

The flow seemed endless - where there ever that many students during his years at Hogwarts? - but soon they were gone, leaving nothing but the echo of their voices. He stayed in the shadows a little longer, trying to convince himself he was just waiting until he was sure they were gone, knowing the real reason was a dragging reluctance he couldn't shake. It took a conscious effort to get himself to move, to force his feet to carry him down the marble staircase and into the medical wing.

Inside the door, he stopped. The urge to run was stronger than ever now, an urge he'd felt for too long, one that he almost physically had to fight. He wasn't ready for this. Wasn't ready for what he could see, for what would be said. He just wasn't ready.

But would he ever be?

He forced himself a step closer, just far enough to see and not be seen. Close enough to see the row of empty starched beds.

Almost empty.

Harry stared for a long moment, a sick kind of fury rising up inside him. What was Dumbledore playing at? That wasn't Severus, that couldn't be. Severus Snape wasn't that pale, that still. Severus Snape wasn't that pathetic huddled shape under the blankets. He couldn't be.

A motion behind him made him turn, all to eager to tear his eyes away from that beaten face and awful truth. Professor McGonagall was closing the door quietly behind her, arms full of toddler. She gave him nothing more than a cursory nod, not giving away his position and for that he was oddly grateful. In fact, the toddler cuddled sleepily in her arms paid him more attention, staring across at him with beady eyes and one finger in her mouth. Harry stared back.

He knew how he was _supposed_ to act. Act awestruck, that this little miracle was his, was part of him, that he'd had a part in her creation.

The first thing that came into his head travelled down to his lips without any intervention from the thinking part of his brain and was pure parent. "Don't suck on your finger," he said quietly. "You'll ruin your teeth."

Araminta stared at him. Raising one delicate eyebrow at him disdainfully, she removed her finger from her mouth.

Then blew him a raspberry.

He heard McGonagall give a choked-off not-quite-laugh, then she was moving into the room proper, stopping to exchange words with Madame Pomfrey.

"How is Severus today? I brought Araminta with me, I thought it might help…"

"Minerva, perfect timing! He's awake, thank Merlin, he's finally awake. We were so worried but the Albus' help, I think we're over the worst of it now." The beam on Pomfrey's face stretched out through her voice and filled the room as she reached out to eagerly cuddle the little girl. Her voice dropped a few levels as they moved towards the bed. "He was asking for her, I didn't know what to tell him, I'm so glad she's safe, I think it will really make a change to his condition, the stress hasn't been helping. I'll leave you two alone, I don't think poor Severus really wants an audience." She walked the other Witch to the lone occupied bed in the ward, then retreated, pointedly busying herself with meaningless paperwork on her desk.

Minerva cast a single look back to the corner where she knew Harry was hiding, then took the seat beside the bed on the far side from where he was watching - on purpose, he suspected.

The little girl in her arms went ballistic at the sight of the man in the bed. "Papa! Papa! Papa! Papa!" the deputy headmistress had her work cut out trying to keep hold of the squirming bundle and she muttered something, making a brief pass with her wand before letting the child go.

Harry winced, then nearly bolted from his hiding place at the act. Had McGonagall gone insane? He stopped himself barely in time when he noticed the screaming toddler wasn't actually putting any pressure on the injured man. She was hovering a bare inch above the covers, close enough to cuddle and touch, but not close enough to cause any hurt. Levitation spell.

Black lashes flickered against pale bruised cheeks, eyes stuttering open, then Snape came awake to the sight of his daughter returned, safe, whole.

For a long moment he was frozen in sheer, wondrous disbelief. His lips formed shapeless syllables, one hand reaching up, fingers shaking to caress a tiny cheek.

"Araminta…"

Whispering his daughter's name like a prayer, the syllables a bare kiss on the air, then his hand left her cheek, reaching up to cup the back of her head, pulling her down to him.

"Araminta. Oh merlin, Araminta…" his lips quivered, caught between a smile and tears as his shaking hands stroked over her hair, her face, wavering then breaking through to tears, and Harry pulled back further into the shadows.

Ridiculous. He knew Severus could cry, on a deep, logical level even though he'd never seen him – _not for lack of trying_ a traitorous part of his mind whispered – but he didn't know that he could cry like this.

Not like this…

McGonagall helped Snape to sit upright, supporting the taller man like he was little more than a helpless kitten and he leaned unashamedly into her, shaking with exhaustion and elation as he clutched almost desperately at the little girl in his arms, almost afraid she would disappear leaving him with nothing but a handful of dreams.

The toddler had his neck in a near-crazed grip, screaming his name over and over into the nearest ear in her piping voice, clinging to him in a frenzy of desperate happiness. "Papa! Papa! Papa!"

"Araminta…" it was all he could say, over and over. The little girl was near-hysterical with joy at the reunion and Snape seemed not far behind her, murmuring reassurances, not in any recognisable language, just a continual, soothing mantra, a little prayer keeping them in their own world as he returned the desperate little kisses, leaning forward and pressing his face to the little mop of black hair as his arms around her tightened. "Shh papa's here, papa's here, oh thank merlin, you're safe, you're safe.." the words dissolved into tears and wordless murmurs again.

Harry felt like an interloper, a pervert, standing here watching this and he pulled further back, looking away for a briefest instant before turning back. He couldn't look away. Not for a million Galleons.

Snape had now hooked an arm around Minerva, clutching both of them to him now, pressing a kiss on the surprised witches cheek. "You found her, oh merlin Minerva, thank you, thank you…" the witch returned the embrace, then pulled back, a pleased flush across her features.

"I'm glad Severus, but I didn't find her." She paused for a moment, face darkening a little with hesitancy before surging ahead. "Harry did."

Snape's elation seemed to drift a little awkwardly at that, face dipping down and pressing into his daughter's hair, eyes closing for a moment. "I should thank him. " the words were barely audible.

"He's here now, but if you're not ready, I can send him away Severus, it's not too much trouble, you need your rest - " the flow of words was halted by a hand on her wrist as Harry himself finally stepped forward.

"Hello, Professor Snape…" he managed quietly.

McGonagall hesitated, waiting for her cue from Severus before nodding and relinquishing her seat. "Poppy is in her office," it was both a courtesy and a warning as she helped Snape sit up, aided by a mountain of pillows. "Call her if you need her, and I'll be out in the hall - " she cut off at a look from Severus, then flustered, straightened her robes. "Yes. Poppy will be here." Then she was edging out of the room, as if reluctant to leave the two men alone.

There were no joyful embraces for Harry. No impulsive kisses. Severus merely reclined on his bed, robes pulled around him, toddler nestling on his chest, face solemn and suspicious.

"I understand I have you to thank for the return of my daughter." The bite was familiar, but no strength to it, and odd overtones of genuine thanks to it. "Thank you."

"Our daughter.." Harry sat on the edge of the bed. So many questions, accusations, once he'd wanted to scream the question in anger at the man before him, but now he was soul-weary, hurt. He just wanted an answer.

Brief, blinding…panic?… flared up in Severus' eyes. Flabbergasted, Harry followed his gaze down to see he was clutched the toddler in his arms in an almost crushing grip, as if afraid that Harry would snatch her away from him.

When he raised his gaze again, Severus was calm, controlled.

"Our daughter? Were you there when she was born? Mmm I think not, although Poppy assures me I did create several inventive curses expressly for you during her delivery. Madame Hooch has the entire event stored in her pensieve, the woman did take a perverse tables-are-turned delight in my condition. I'm sure she'll share the memory with you if you can be bothered." His hand drifted down the toddler's back. "Were you there when she smiled her first smile? Did you ever awake at night, hearing her cry, and feel your heart clench, that something was wrong?" the words beat at Harry, guilt echoing hollowly in his chest. "Were you there when she took her first step, said her first word? Did you ever comfort her when she fell, or help her blow out the candles on a birthday cake, face smeared with chocolate and cream, helpless giggles echoing in your ears? You seem so intent on claiming your daughter Mister Potter, can you tell me why you were never there?"

The guilt sounded louder building into a crescendo of anger and remorse. It wasn't his fault. It wasn't his fault! "Jesus christ Severus, did you ever give me the _chance?_ IT WASN'T HIS FAULT, DAMMIT!

"Jesus who? Ah, yes, the muggle saviour. Perhaps you should be swearing by your own name. "Harry J Potter", it does have a ring to it."

Harry clenched his fists and found to his utter shock he was less than a breath away from attacking a seriously injured man on his sickbed. He forcibly calmed himself down, much to the relief of the unobtrusively hovering Pomfrey, who'd taken a few anxious steps closer to the pair.

He took several breaths before continuing, fumbling for the chair beside the bed. "You never gave me the chance. You never told me. I could -" the words broke and it took all of him to continue. "I could…I would have been there. You know I would have." Truth etched out of the words, spilling like ink across a blank page. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry I was so stupid, I swear, but I was wrong, I do love you god Severus, why didn't you tell me?"

Snape watched him with colourless eyes, betraying nothing, seemingly unaffected by his impassioned words. "And you were _so_ easy to reach, Mister Potter. Tucked away in your world of Aurors and intrigue. Tell me, if I had told you, would you have cared?"

The words were an outright slap in the face. Harry reeled under the impact, unable to think, unable to form words. Severus didn't even bother to look at him, filling the void between them with soft, almost lazy words. Horrible words, words Harry wanted to block out.

"You never knew because you never cared to know. You were never given the chance because you were never there to give the chance to. After all, what would the Great Harry Potter, Boy Who Lived, the _greatest_ Auror of all care for a greasy evil Slytherin and his bastard child?" the words flowed out like raw silk, deadly as nightshade. "Why stay, why bother with a lover you don't need, why have any ties when there's nothing here compared to the gentle roar of the world outside, the adoration of thousands, basking in the adulation heaped so lovingly at your feet? What would one, small child be compared to all that?"

Tears pricked at his cheeks, chest heaving around a howl of anguish so strong it was silent, beating at his ribcage. He wanted to…oh merlin he wanted to so badly, he didn't know where to begin, didn't even know what he wanted. Everything. Anything. Scream against it. Run away. Pull Severus and their daughter into his arms and hold them close, never let them go, make the years disappear and do it over again, never leave this room, never come back, take another path, any path but this!

A hand reached up, fingers shaking with fatigue to brush against the tears on his cheeks and he leaned into the motion. The fingers were cold, impersonal, and quickly withdrawn as Snape pulled his hand back to observe the dampness glistening on the tips of his fingers. "Tears?" he mocked gently. "Oh come now, the Great Harry Potter isn't crying over a simple **fuck** is he?"

"Don't - " Harry choked out, but the other man's words rolled over him, somehow harsher for the pained softness of the tone.

"Don't what, Potter? Don't mock you? Don't walk away? Don't leave you cold and alone? Don't deride your misguided affections? That's all they are, after all. Simple childish crushes and idiots games. Oh…" the last was drawn out in a long sigh as he rested back on the bed, face turned to the ceiling, eyes half-lidded, lashes brushing against pale cheeks like butterfly kisses. "So the great Harry Potter has discovered his actions have consequences after all. mmm, and so brave he is now, coming home. For how long, I wonder? How long this time? After all, what _will_ the world say of its golden boy when they discover his dirty little secret? How long before their adulation fades, and you chase after it again? It's just a mistake, that's all, and mistakes are so easily remedied when you run away. Another denial, another Death Eater defeated and you're once more bathing yourself in the splendor of being Harry Potter, the Great Harry Potter, the Glorious Harry Pot-"

"I'M NOT LIKE THAT AND YOU KNOW IT!" Harry finally screamed.

"Aren't you?" Snape shot back, just as furious, voice tempered by pain and weakness, but mind losing nothing of its edge. "Do I?" He clutched the silent, wide-eyed toddler in his arms closer to his chest protectively. "You come to me singing songs of how you've grown and what a fool you were but I look into your eyes and I see nothing but the same spoiled vicious little _shit_ that lied his way into my bed and fled when he was no longer amused. Time and time again I have seen your peers and betters bow to you simply because of who you are and I will not! You broke my heart and tried to ruin my life THERE'S NO WAY IN THE DEEPEST HELL I WILL LET YOU RUIN MY DAUGHTERS."

Harry bolted from his seat, the chair flying backwards with the sheer force of his movements. His lips formed around a scream in retaliation, vaguely aware of the way his daughter's face was twisting into an unhappy howl, even Poppy was running forwards, Severus' name on her lips.

Snape himself beat all of them to it, face suddenly contorting in agony, hands stiffening and claw-like in a paroxysm of torment. Beads of sweat sprang freely on his forehead, teeth clenching around a thin scream and both Araminta and Harry cried out in the same instant, their voices drowned out by Poppy's as she hurried forward, pushing Harry out of the way. Snatching Araminta up, the mediwitch gently put her to one side, the toddler sitting on her backside in thin air, finger in her mouth, lips trembling on the way to a full-throated howl of fear as Pomfrey worked frantically on her father.

Harry wasn't far behind. He felt sick, helpless as the woman worked, stress throwing her thin features into sharp relief ash her hands worked quickly but steadily, muttering mild charms under her breath, spilling a sickly-coloured potion between the pain-thinned lips, one hand gently rubbing Snape's chest to help him swallow. "Breathe, Severus, try to breathe, it will ease, I promise…" and her words held true as the frantic gasps for air gradually quietened into ragged breaths, features relaxing and soothing into slumber. Poppy watched him for a moment longer before relaxing herself, pulling the blankets up and gently brushing a lock of sweat-soaked hair from Severus' face.

"He'll sleep now," was all she said to Harry, an abrupt dismissal as she took the now frightened and bewildered Araminta into her arms and gently soothed the crying child. "shh, shh, it's ok now poppet, Papa just got a little over excited, he'll be all right, it's ok now, it's ok…"

Harry slowly pressed himself away from the wall, fumbling for the chair. Legs shaking, he took the seat. Tiny lines of pain still showed on the other man's forehead and he reached out to soothe them, anger suddenly drained by the terrifying display. He took one of Severus' hands into his own, staring at the other man, willing the pain-filled breathing to ease, trying to calm down his own panicked heart. In the anger and argument, he'd forgotten how weak the other man was, that he'd been injured, and it had all been reminded him in a single, horrifying moment.

The hand in his felt odd, and his gaze drifted downwards. The fingers were splinted and bandaged, he noticed with the odd clarity of shock, the thin strips of cotton barely hiding the deep imprinted bruise in the shape of a boot.

They'd stomped his hands. His marvellous, long-fingered, skilled hands.

Harry felt the anger start a slow burn again. A dangerous anger. Behind him, Pomfrey was ratting bottles as she sorted through them. This was muggle medicine, not wizard – why? It would be a matter of moments to heal, why hadn't they? The rattling grew louder, biting on his nerves as the sight of those marvellous, ruined hands filled his vision and he twisted in his chair, shouting the question at her.

"Why won't you heal him? What the hell is the matter with you!"

"Harry!" Pomfrey hurried forward, shushing him. Araminta stared at him, fear sketching stark lines on her tiny face, clinging to the mediwitch as she perched on one hip, fingers once more back in her mouth. "Please, be quiet! That potion won't keep Severus asleep very long with you yelling like that and he needs to rest. I don't dare give him a stronger dose, not in the condition he's in."

Harry's hand clenched convulsively on the fingers nestled in his, then he forced himself to let go. "What happened." He knew he was grinding the words out, but couldn't help himself, pushed too far and stripped raw.

Poppy paused, then settled Araminta down on the bed. She immediately crawled up and nestled down against her father, head pressed into his chest to hear his heartbeat, one tiny hand clutching restlessly at the blankets. Crooking a finger, the mediwitch beckoned the Auror out of earshot of the toddler, transfiguring a pair of chairs and sinking into one.

"Harry, you've been through a tremendous shock," she started gently. "I don't think that this is the right ti - "

"I'm an Auror now, Pomfrey," no honourific, the words were too bitter on his lips. "Tell me. I might be able to help him. I owe -" the words broke and he had to look away. "I owe him that, at least for what I've done."

Pomfrey hesitated. In her opinion, Harry looked in no condition to help anyone in strenuous spell casting. He looked worse than he did as a child on returning from holidays with those dreadful muggle relatives of his. Half-starved and ill-slept, huge bags under his eyes she wouldn't trust him to levitate a cat, let alone try to untangle a net of twisted curses like this.

"We haven't been able to piece together much. The Obliviate was used as well. " She took a deep breath. "It happened in Hogsmead, three days ago. From what we gathered they attacked Severus near Dervish and Banges - that was where Winky…found him, the poor thing was taking down another scarf for Araminta, she was worried she'd catch a chill in the cold - " she pulled herself back on track. "- and we know he was collecting a package of potion ingredients he'd ordered, he didn't like to go into Diagon Alley since the children started being taken, we thought it wouldn't be safe, he still has a lot of enemies, and we thought he'd be safe here. But they came for him…"

As Poppy continued her tale, Harry shrunk deeper and deeper into himself. It had been a mix of vengeance and kidnap, they'd taken Araminta and Snape had fought back. Anger at the potions master's betrayal of their Lord had spilled into their original dark purpose with horrifying results. Not content with a simple attack, they had beaten him to an inch of his life, then unleashed the most horrific curses. Some of them he knew, the Cruciatus, Caesura, Comminute, others were darker, ones he'd only learned during his work as an Unspeakable. Saguina Flamare, blood to fire, Excoriate, dozens of others, marching through his mind in a hellish parade. Curses that were never meant to be cast. Curses that should never have been formed. Curses that had tangled and mutated like a ball of string that had been dropped, forming a living hell on earth.

And when they ran out of curses, they simply beat him again.

Harry's hands twisted in his robes until blood began to seep from his palms. It was a miracle Severus was even breathing. The same stubborn refusal to submit was all that had kept him alive, a refusal to die, a refusal to end until Winky had found him, until the others at Hogwarts could even begin to work at the tangled knot of hell he'd been bound to.

But he hadn't given in without a fight. Even cursed and beaten they hadn't taken his child easily. His wand had been found broken nearby, burns on the tips of his fingers evidence of wandless magic, raw power coursing through his very skin, the bodies of two death eaters nearby.

But in the end, he had lost.

Harry's eyes closed, leaving him in hell as the tale ended. Winky had fled screaming for help, and Rosemerta had sent a frantic owl to the Castle, the people gathering around the injured man, afraid to touch him, leaving him lying there twisted in pain, fist clenched around a single ribbon of Slytherin green. Empathy washed his soul. How many other parents had he seen the same? The desperate fear, the pleading in their faces, white knuckles clutching at some precious momento of their stolen child, begging for their return - would he have treated any of them the way he had treated Severus? No, but somehow because he was involved, because it was Snape, that had made it all right in his mind, alright to berate and abuse him, pick a fight with an almost fatally injured man in his sickbed, professionalism out the door and emotions he could have sworn he didn't have any more taking control.

Poppy let him sit in silence for a moment, watching worriedly. Truth be told, she was more afeared for Harry than Severus at the moment. Severus was tucked up safe, he was healing, surrounded by those who would care for him, whereas Harry was cast adrift, unsure of his place, not hurting physically but mentally, in a place that would be hard to reach, to heal.

After a long moment, Harry stirred. "Can I sit with him a while?" he asked softly.

Poppy nodded. "For a little while. But please, don't upset him." _What happened to you, Harry?_ She wondered. _What turned that cheerful little boy I once knew into such a hurting young man?_ She watched him make his way back to the bed, every motion saturated with hurt, and prayed that there would somehow be a way to make it all right again.

For all their sakes.

Severus' eyes flickered open again as Harry sat down, head lolling tiredly to face him. "Still here, Potter? I would have thought that delightful display would have sent you packing. Or perhaps you take a sadistic delight in watching others suffer?"

"You don't scare me, Severus," it was whispered, words coming slowly as he realised the truth for himself as well. "You can't. I know you."

"And still you stay." Black eyes mocked him. "Then you're an even bigger fool than I took you for."

Harry edged closer and hesitantly took Snape's hand in his own, encouraged when the other man didn't pull away. "I'm sorry," he said softly. "I shouldn't have said what I did. I shouldn't have upset you - "

"Don't treat me like an invalid, Potter," the rasp in his voice betrayed the harshness of the words. "There's no weakness for you to exploit. Not where my daughter is concerned."

Harry bowed his head. Without any volition from his mind, his fingers gently stroked the other man's wrist. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I wasn't there then, but I didn't know. I know now, and this changes everything. Please, you have to see that Severus. I didn't know this had happened, and I can't change that," was the other man even listening? There was no change in his eyes, but he didn't pull his hand away. "But I can change it now. Please. I didn't even know, I didn't even know, but now I do and I want, I want…" he was blabbering, not even sure he was making sense in his own head, just eaten alive by an overwhelming need, an all consuming _want._ "Please…" and he was crying now, openly begging. "Please, I know I was an idiot, I know but I was wrong. I should have been there, I'll do whatever you want. I'll crawl if you want to, just give me a chance, please, she's my daughter too, and I never even got to hold her knowing that." The words splintered and broke, leaving him voiceless. "Please..?"

Snape couldn't even look at him now, eyes closed and face turning away. It was demeaning, watching the other man break so completely, the feeling that he had caused this, had made him cry and at the same time a vicious sort of victory at knowing he'd succeeded, as if destroying him now could somehow make up for the anger and hurt of three years ago.

Destroying the present couldn't change the past. It was something he knew well, no matter how hard he tried. Lily, Sirius, and now Harry.

Except this time it wasn't his life alone he was cutting ties, making decisions for. It was his daughters. Their daughter. Both he and Harry. And ultimately…

...did he have that right?

Araminta crawled up his chest, whimpering. "Don't cry Papa, don't be mad, at the nice man, he's a nice man, not a bad man Papa, please.." she wrapped an arm around her father's neck and hugged him clumsily, completely unaware of the cause of the tension of the room, but not immune to the emotions charging through it.

In the end, it was her actions that broke the stalemate.

Severus turned his eyes to Harry again and this time there was no thin veneer of disgust, or disguise in his face. They were incredibly old eyes, the eyes of a man who was ill, beaten, and above all tired.

"Do as you wish, Potter. You are here, and there is nothing I can do to change that fact. Nor can I change the fact that you are Araminta's father, and I owe that to her alone not to deny her any part of heritage."

"Severus…"

Snape finally pulled his hand free from Harry's. "I'm not a child Potter. I cannot forgive, nor forget at a moments notice. For her sake, I will attempt to be civil. But don't ask for anything more."

Hope welled eternal, even now. Harry could almost see the unspoken word in the air. _Yet_

"I won't." He pulled his hands back into his lap, almost desperate for anything that Severus would deign to give him. The mirror of Erised had been cruelly correct - his deepest desire was to have a family, to belong, and he'd unwittingly turned his back and walked away from it. Reaching out, he hesitantly touched, then stroked his daughter's hair, touching her for the first time as her father, revelling in that quite knowledge.

They sat there together, the three of them in a calm, if not companionable silence, a family almost united, at ceasefire with each other if nothing else. After a while, Severus drifted back into an uneasy sleep and Harry sat with him a while, grateful that Poppy allowed him this moment, and the time to recompose himself before chasing him out of the infirmary.

Perhaps there was hope, after all.   



	13. Chapter 12

Professor McGonagall waited in the hall outside the infirmary, mind whirling around itself as to what to do next. She was genuinely torn in two directions. On one hand there was Severus, a long-time and respected, if not dear friend, (no matter how hard she tried, the trite phrase "dear friend" refused to apply itself to Snape, no matter how apt it was) and on the other she had Harry, onetime student, and a man of character - she prided herself on the ability to spot people's inklings and always thought him to be forever honourable, much like his father.

And now the school would be torn in two, those who would take Severus' side, and those who would take the side of Harry, but who would be on the side of the truth? Things went wrong. It was a fact of life.

Like Pomfrey before her, she worried for the younger man. He was alone, no one seemed interested in hearing his side of the story, and it was a story she'd pondered on, pondered on the entire matter while waiting for him to either emerge from the infirmary, or be called in to help pry the two men from each others throats.

Although Severus had never told her the father of his daughter, he had intimated that the other man was unaware, and he would prefer it to stay that way. The sympathy in her heart had redoubled at the idea that the father was somehow an enemy, and that the child Severus was growing to love as it nestled protectively inside him would be used as some cruel pawn against him.

Now she knew who the father was, she could see a little of what she fancied was the rationale behind the act. The child of Severus Snape and Harry Potter would be a goldmine of vengeance for any twisted with or wizard that bore a grudge. But still…to deny a man his own _child!_

If the relationship had been so strong, so strong that a child would result, why had there been no word between the two? Severus would have cut himself off, it was characteristic of the man, she'd seen it even when he was a young boy starting his education, a boy who'd grown to believe in mistrust, a boy who'd learned to cut himself off a the first sign of betrayal rather than wait for a second. But why hadn't Harry even kept in touch, given rise to the possibility of finding out before now? She couldn't imagine the persistent young Gryffindor she'd known to allow himself to be rebuffed from something that had been that strong…

Her mind had worked patiently away at it while she'd waited in the hall. Although a spinster herself, she was no stranger to love - or hate - and she knew that more often than not when the relationships that seemed so true and pure broke, they broke irrevocably, severing all ties. It was a cruel irony and testament to the passions of humanity.

As soon as Harry left the infirmary door, the look on his face decided her mind. Harry didn't need questions, didn't need recriminations.

What Harry needed desperately was a hug.

Harry stiffened as his old teacher's arms came around him, then clung to her, shocking himself with how desperate he was for a simple embrace. He suddenly craved for the old days. It had to be the castle, it had to be. Had to be the old familiar surroundings wrapping around his body and mind, making him crave the way it was back when he was a boy. When everyone told him he was brave, he was clever, a thousand little compliments that never fuelled his ego, simply fed a part of him long starved by the Dursley's. Someone to tell him he was _good._

He felt his chest hitch once, twice, tears beating again at the simplicity of a human touch and he cursed himself a thousand times for being stupid but he couldn't stop it. McGonagall widened the chair she was seated on, making it a bench and he shamelessly curled into her, tears soaking the front of her robes.

Minerva made soft, calming noises, rocking gently, stroking his hair. Oh, the circumstances changed, the man was different, but she remembered so well holding poor Severus like this, soothing him as he cried…

Severus had taken to lying in of late, both from exhaustion at his progressing condition and the desire to avoid the open stares of the entire school at breakfast and the other teachers hadn't commented on it. Minerva worried in the kitchen with the house elves, fussing as Dobby returned with another tray of food untouched. Severus barely ate enough as it was in her opinion, and nutrition was even more important now he was eating for two. He wasn't planning on showing up for his classes either, she'd learned, and her worry doubled. Taking some time off was all well and good, but he needed to take much better care of himself!

Gathering up the tray, she marched down to the dungeons and knocked sharply on the door. There was no response, but then again she'd learned not to expect one.

The wards recognised her, opening under her hand and she strode into the dark chambers, tray in hand. "Breakfast, Severus," she began sharply. "And I want -"

The words petered and died at the sight of the man seated on the side of the bed, feet on the floor, shoulders slumped and hands pressing to a pale face. "Oh, Severus…" She took a seat beside him and tugged him into her arms. "Come here…"

The hug broke whatever control he'd been teetering on and the tears started. Tears and self-recrimination. It was such a stupid, infantile thing to his mind. He'd been looking forward to his breakfast for once. A conspiracy of hyperactive house elves and overeager staff had promised him a menu to match his changing palate, and when it had come…he'd been completely unable to eat it. The mere smell of the food had sent his stomach churning and rebelling, leaving him gasping over the toilet convulsing past the point there was nothing left. He was tired, he was hungry, and fed up with everything, mood swings and depression shoving him far past his limits. He would even endure the Cruciatus if it would end this torment!

Minerva cradled him to her chest and rocked gently, privately glad that she was the only one witness to this display. Severus was such a private person, he would be utterly mortified if anyone else had seen this. Bad enough that she was here.

She was worried though. Although she'd never been pregnant herself, she had plenty of friends who had been through it, and she could never recall a case of morning sickness this bad. Certainly not one that affected the person so badly! In her arms Severus felt thinner than ever and she worried that he'd lost weight he could ill afford - Poppy would need to be called before anything drastic happened, even if it did turn out to simply be the worries of a mad old witch.

Not at the moment though. Severus didn't need poking or prying, he needed comfort, company, a chance to recover his cherished dignity.

"Shh…shh.." she remembered a night that had been like this long long ago. A frightened boy who'd seen death staring at his face for the first time at the claws and teeth of a boy he was developing a friendship with, victim of a cruel prank. Her lips tightened at the memory. Oh, only if she had been head of Gryffindor when that had happened! No slap on the wrist for Sirius Black, he would have found himself facing expulsion at the very least, even criminal charges.

And now, like then, Severus found an odd comfort in the elderly witch from an opposing house, seemingly the only person who didn't care what had happened, who had done what, simply saw a person in need of comfort.

He had cried himself dry, a thousand times it seemed, settling into a quiet catharsis, eyes seared red, face twisted in an odd mixture of self-disgust and sorrow. She could only imagine how it was for him, the proud head of Slytherin completely at the mercy of his emotions, no longer in control of even himself.

Minerva began to rock gently back and forth, hands rubbing gently up and down the other teacher's back. Snape made a groaning noise, eyes closing and relaxing into the motion.

"You should have been a mother, Minerva," he whispered, throat raw from tears.

McGonagall smiled. "I rather thought I was."

Snape let out a wry chuckle at that. More than once the other professor had bitched to him how it seemed she was more a mother hen to a brood of unruly Gryffindors than a teacher.

"And a good one…" the gentle motions were drawing him into sleep, morpheus loosening his tongue far more than he would allow it to be normally. Minerva stroked his hair back from his forehead, whispering to him not to fight it, rocking him gently and staying with him until he drifted into a much-needed sleep.

Yes, more often than once she did feel like a mother hen - not only to her own house, but to a good majority of the school. She'd never given birth, but she had been mother to thousands of students over the years. Still, there were two that she did tend to hold in her heart closer than any others, and now they would both need her.

Harry had cried himself out, pushing himself up and out of her arms and her heart pained at how he wouldn't even allow himself the peace of catharsis. A quick spell cleared all trace of the tears away - Harry, she knew, was as close and prideful as Snape when it came to showing 'weaker' emotions.

"Would you like to come to my office for a talk?" she offered.

He looked at her almost shyly. "Yes…yes..I'd like that." With a tap of her wand, the bench went back to a suit of armour, and the pair set on their way.

Running feet caught her attention, and Minerva paused, one hand on the door. "I think we'd best leave this until later, Harry," she nodded behind the Auror. "There's someone here for you."

"Me?"

"Oi, Harry!" He barely turned before he was hit by a speeding Weasley. 


	14. Chapter 13

Minerva smiled and slipped into her office as the two men degenerated into a jumble of shoulder punching and back-pounding hugs. "Where the hell have you been?" Ron was yelling delightedly. "Don't answer that, I know, ministry business… been keeping me on my toes too."

Harry grinned back at his friend. So Ron did decide to train as an Auror after all. "Usual stuff, how are you and Hermione? Set a date yet?" A sudden thought struck him. "I didn't miss the wedding did I?" Deep training was just that - deep, and he'd had no contact with the outside world for nearly five months. Guilt prickled at the thought he'd missed the invitation somehow and his best friend's wedding.

"Wedding? Oh.." realisation cleared the confusion from the other man's face. "Me and Hermione. That's right, you've been out of the loop. We decided not to get married. Well I wanted to …but Hermione didn't. She was all "Oh please, married out of high school, that's so middle-class America" and while I was still trying to work that one out she hits me with how she wanted a _career,_ and how every woman wanted a _career._ And then I asked her how come she couldn't have a kids _and_ a career…" he scratched the back of his head and winced, a blush warring briefly with the freckles for his face. "Remember S.P.E.W? It was like that, but worse. She went absolutely barmy! Started screeching that how dare I assume that she wanted children, and how it was just fascistic males trying to keep women oppressed that created the whole concept of marriage and how _dare_ I attempt to tie her down to a stove and children and uh, well...It went on for a bit. And then I said things and she said things and we kinda called it quits. It was a wakeup, made us realise that we weren't really that made for each other, or a future together. We still kept in touch though. After the embarrassment had worn off." The two men sat together on the stairs for a bit in comfortable silence.

Well, at least Harry did. Ron was still talking, he couldn't tell what about. His mind had crawled into itself, letting the other man's words wash heedlessly over him, thoughts drifting in and out of focus.

Was that what should have happened? An amiable break-up, keeping in touch, growing to friends with a history deeper than usual? Would that have happened if he hadn't been so hell-bent on shattering all ties and expunging the memory? What could have been teased at him. Keeping in touch, knowing from Severus, if he hadn't run away, he could have known, could have _been_ there….

"So you're an unspeakable now, huh?" Ron grinned and jabbed him in the shoulder, abruptly tearing him from his thoughts. "Shoulda guessed you'd head that way, I mean with all the stuff we did during our school years we were bound to join the ministry. Me, I'm just an ordinary Auror, but you had to go the extra mile and glory didn't you?"

Harry jerked his head up at that, eyes searching his friends. Was that what Ron thought it was? This was just like the TriWizard tournament all over again…

Ron rolled his eyes. "_Joke_ Harry. You know, I say something funny, you laugh….yeeeesh. I'm actually kinda proud of you. It takes guts to be one of the Men of Mystery. I though I'd seen some rough things in my work, I'd hate to see what you've seen." He was silent for a long moment, then Harry felt a hand on his shoulder. "I know you've been one of the first on the scenes of what the Death Eaters have been doing….If you need to….talk…or get drunk….or…something…"

It was like someone was pulling his teeth and Harry fought a laugh. Ron never really did do touchy-feely that well. Still, it was appreciated. Anything resembling human touch, anything that drove back the decisions and pressure and roiling turmoil inside. "Nah, I'm…I'm alright." Lies came more easily than truth nowadays.

"Heard you found Snape's kid." Ron leaned back on his elbows. "She wasn't hurt?" he relaxed as the other man shook his head. "Thank Merlin, I 'd hate to think of what he was going through. Yeah, I mean he's Snape, but no one deserves that. It was hard enough on him carrying the poor thing in the first place, and he really does care about her, you know?"

"You _knew_ about that??" What, did everyone in the known universe know about Severus except him?

"Charlie told me. He found out when Dumbledore showed up in Romania with a bag full of leeches. Apparently one of the twelve uses of Dragon's Blood is a cure for morning sickness. And I thought 'Oh this I GOTTA see' so I jumped on my broom and made up some half-cocked story about Ministry Business…"

Hogwarts hadn't changed and it was a peculiarly delightful stroll down memory lane for Ron as he made his way to the dungeons. His mind was still bubbling at the fact Snape was pregnant, and he went more to see for himself that it was true and not some massive prank on behalf of his brothers rather than to poke fun.

Ok, so poking fun was a large element. C'mon, this was _Snape,_ after all. He wondered what he was up to.

From the looks of things, Snape was delightedly tormenting a joint class of first year Hufflepuffs and Slytherin.

"Oops, sorry." He hadn't considered the thought that the other man was conducting a class. _Idiot, he's a _teacher_ what else would he be doing?_

"Not at all." Snape waved him in. Leaning over his desk, he spread his palms out across the wooden surface, addressing his class.

"Ladies and gentlemen - and in a good many cases I _do_ use those terms loosely - I introduce to you Ronald Weasley, famed Auror and a hero of the final battle against Voldemort." Ron grinned and waved a sheepish hand at the class. "An impressive introduction indeed, and one may think his acts almost make up for his abysmal scores in his potions final."

Ron's grin faded and a few Slytherin snickered.

The Hufflepuffs in the front row shrank back as Snape leaned further over his desk towards the class, looming menacingly. "You may think that brave acts and noble stupidity can take the place of lesser attributes such as intelligence, foresight and education and indeed in the outside world this may occasionally hold true but this is _my_ classroom, and in _my_ classroom a fail is still a fail and you are required to pass your potions exam if you ever wish to see a school year beyond your first!"

In the far right corner a Hufflepuff made a small squeaking noise and nearly fainted.

Snape sat back, satisfied. "I expect you to read chapters fourteen to twenty-seven by tomorrow, we will be creating an anti-venom for snakebite. The last person through those doors will volunteer themselves as a test subject to the efficiency of your efforts. Class dismissed."

Ron's grin resurfaced as the class bolted past him with an all-too-familiar panic. A few looked as if they would like to linger and speak with the Auror, but a single glare from Snape sent them packing.

Severus straightened a few papers on his desk before finally acknowledging the man standing there waiting. "Yes, Mr. Weasley?"

Ron cleared his throat and tried to look official. "I'm here on Ministry business, Professor, and -"

"Bollocks." The word cut across his half-formed excuse and his eyes widened at the word. "You've come to gawk at the infamous Professor Snape in a delicate condition." He leaned back in his chair and spread his robes open, unashamedly showing the way his now-noticeably rounded belly pushed softly at the buttons of his frock-coat. "By all means, indulge your perverse fascination."

"Wow." It was completely unaffected and Ron reached out instinctively to touch.

Snape pulled back from the contact, tugging his robes closed again. "Your brothers have already come to gape - although they, at least, didn't insult my intelligence by pretending otherwise. They also left me several…treats..." the word was said with the careful distastefulness of a society lady picking up something unpleasant with a pair of sugar tongs. "…from their abominable sweets line, and although I have faced trolls, dementors, and Lord Voldemort himself, none of them inspire quite the same amount of terror as that revoltingly gay-coloured contraption." He gestured to a basket on the edge of his desk. "Do you suppose there is anything palatable in there?"

Ron peered into the basket and winced. "I think so. Just don't eat the purple ones." He was unnerved, to say the least. He didn't know which was more disconcerting, the fact that Fred and George had put together a fairly innocent package of treats, or that he was actually conversing with Snape.

"Or what, I might swell up like a balloon?" Severus himself was feeling rather mellow as he eased himself out of his chair and began cleaning up the aftermath of his latest class. Thanks to the combined efforts of Dumbledore and Pomfrey his morning sickness was now nothing more than a highly unpleasant memory, a night of peaceful, uninterrupted sleep had done wonders for his disposition and this morning's breakfast of kippers and jam had been particularly delightful.

Then again, the mood swings may have had something to do with it.

"Um, no…" Ron scrunched up his nose as he tried to remember what had happened to Ginny when she'd tried one. "Oh, that's right, your hair turns bright pink. Are you sure you should be doing that in your condition?" he hovered nervously behind the slow-moving potions master as he tidied up.

Snape turned and arched a brow at him. "Since you ask, of late some of my students have taken to staying behind after class to clean up the abysmal failures of their efforts, but seeing as your presence appears to have scared them off - " Ron suddenly found himself with a handful of test tubes. "Make yourself useful."

The Auror smiled ruefully as the potions master made his way back to his desk. He'd walked into that one. Filling the sink in the corner of the room, he worked his way around the classroom, gathering up crucibles and retorts, clearing away the scraps of paper left hastily behind by students with the fear of Snape within them.

A rough caricature of Snape abandoned on a table caught his eye and he paused for a moment, studying it. It was a rough sketch, the type done by a bored student, but the artist did have some talent. The rough bangs framed a pale severe face above a boiling cauldron in a well known pose, although the threatening façade was rather spoiled by the grossly exaggerated pregnant belly he'd been graced with. A crudely drawn voice bubble filled the next cell, with the words blah blah blah blah blah blah spilling out and across the page. Lips twitching, he followed the brief comic to its conclusion, where Snape exploded into a shower of babies.

Suppressing the urge to laugh, he tucked it into the sleeve of his robe. It was disturbing, but funny none the less, and a testament to the fact that Snape hadn't lost his carefully cultivated reputation for being a complete bastard in the slightest.

A small gasp made him turn to where Snape stood on the teacher's podium, one hand bracing himself against his desk, the other resting on his stomach, an odd look on his face. "Professor?" he bolted forward, wrapping an arm around the other man's waist and walking him carefully to his chair, panicking a little. "Are you ok? Should I call someone? Where does it hurt?"

Snape waved him off irritably. "Don't be such a dramatic, Weasley," he snapped. "The baby kicked, that was all, and I was unprepared." He lowered himself carefully into his chair, shooting the other man a look that was pure Slytherin. "Well? I assume your offer of help extended to the entire classroom and not just three small crucibles."

Shaking his head a little in disgust, Ron set back to his task. After a while, he risked a look out of the corner of his eye. Snape was still sitting motionless in his chair, both hands resting on his belly, head cocked to one side as if listening for something only he could hear. Something happened and his eyes widened, hands moving gently across his abdomen, an almost-smile quirking at the side of his mouth.

Ron let a secret smile cross his face and hastily turned his back. Dunking a retort into the soapy water of the sink, he scrubbed vigorously. Unfortunately he'd learned early on why cleaning spells were **never** used on potions utensils. Well, Seamus had, at least. Still, his eyebrows had grown back in the end…

He deliberately _didn't_ ask who was the father of Snape's child. Fred had warned him against that. So had George. And Dumbledore. And Hagrid. And McGonagall, and Hooch, and Flitwick and a horde of others he'd passed on his way down to the dungeons. Which, of course, meant the question was constantly hovering on the tip of his tongue with a burning curiosity.

"Heard anything from Harry?" he tossed out casually, not really quite sure why. Still, maybe the school was privy to scuttlebutt he'd not heard, and any news was better than none.

Dead silence and a growing sense of gloom filled the room in answer to his question.

"I know Hermione's in a research position now," he filled the silence, hands working away. "Haven't heard from her for a while though, with one thing and another. Dunno what Harry's up to though, he's off in deep training or something." He drained the sink and towelled the suds from his hands. "I think he's going for a position as an Unspe - "

The snap of a quill broke his words and he turned, seeing Snape clutching the shattered halves in his hand. "Kindly cease from mentioning that….**creature** in my presence." There was no sign now of the other man he had seen almost tenderly caressing his stomach, this was Severus Snape, potions master, hateful bastard and greasy Slytherin.

There once was a time Ron would have quailed in terror before that gaze, but he was a grown man now, and had seen things in his life that made the fearsome potions master look like a mewling kitten. It was funny how he lost his claws a bit when you knew he had no power over you.

Ron let out a low breath of anger between his teeth, then forced himself to let go. He would have loved the chance to rip into the potions master in defence of his friend, but the other man was pregnant, and he knew better than to upset a pregnant person. Looked Snape was still sore over how Harry saved his arse during the final battle. He remembered one hell of row afterwards, the two of them screaming at each other and easily heard even over the sounds of battle. Absently he rubbed the broad burn scar occupying most of his palm, his own little momento of the fight. He'd been brave (or stupid, depending which way you looked at it) enough to grab a Death Eater's wand just as it was going off, and almost lost his hand for his troubles. Still, better his hand than Remus' head. He'd adopted his mother's policy. It all worked out in the end, so that was that.

Well, that was the expurgated version. After all the hysterical screaming and cries of "My poor baby!!"

Besides, what was Snape going to do, take points from the ministry? Force him to stay back and clean the classroom in punishment?

He laughed out loud of the irony of that thought and the sound seemed to diffuse the situation a bit. Snape was still watching him, but without the shuddering tension of before. He looked pale though - a bit too pale and the Auror hurried up to the teacher's desk, worried that his old teacher was going to have a fainting spell.

"Here, sit down for a bit, all that standing can't be good for your feet.." Ron was the picture of solicitousness, fussing the other man into his chair, supporting him by an arm until he was safely seated.

Snape was still staring at him, but with a completely different manner to before. Mystified was the word, completely bamboozled at the concern, as if he was expecting a completely different set of emotions to show themselves. Poor bloke. Ron felt a sudden surge of unexpected sympathy. Couldn't be easy for him in this condition knowing what everyone thought of him. Then again, he did create the impression himself, so there was no one else to blame…

Then again, this was _Snape!_ He gave his head a sharp shake. The man didn't have any soft and squishy emotions! He lived to torment and terrify, delighting in the cruelty of others mistakes and, and….

And Ron could see now why the twins had actually come back rather subdued and without pulling a single one of their carefully planned, safe but still annoying pranks. There was an odd vulnerability to Snape, somehow made more pathetic by the fact the man himself seemed oblivious to it. Carefully polished unpleasant memories were melting under that vulnerability, leaving him unsure how to deal with this new man before him.

Snape's eyes finally left him, widening again and a soft sound escaping from his lips as his hand once more gently touched his belly. By instinct, Ron found his hand following the motion, hand resting over a long fingered one, and this time to his astonishment Snape didn't pull away.

"May I?" he asked softly.

Secretly Snape was relieved. One, for the change of subject and the odd feeling that was gradually permeating the room. Second, his baby had been incredibly active for the last half hour and he wasn't sure it was normal to feel so much movement this early on in a pregnancy. The constant bumps from within were disconcerting, to say the least. Of course, he covered it with his usual defence. "Given your family's predilection for breeding like lemmings, I'm sure you know far more of the particulars of pregnancy than I could ever hope to."

Ron let the insult slide off him in a particular way he'd perfected during his seventh year, taking it as permission and knelt down in front of the chair. Reaching up, he hesitated, then worked on a few of the buttons of the other man's coat. He couldn't very well feel anything through something like that.

He was unsettled by the intimacy of the gesture and looked up into the other man's face. Black eyes regarded him with the usual mixture of disdain and boredom, reminding him that this was Snape, and surprisingly making him feel a little better.

Under the frock-coat was a thin white shirt that he left untouched, reaching out and gently pressing his hand to the stretched skin underneath. After a moment, a foot prodded softly against his palm and he grinned without a trace of embarrassment or self-consciousness. He followed the motion, tapping gently back to the infant, lost in his own world of sheer delight. It came again and he laughed, sitting back and staring at Snape's belly, complete and unaffected pleasure lighting his features. He'd always loved kids. "She's an active one, isn't she?" he patted the stomach under his hand gently.

Snape stared at him. "She?" Even he didn't know the sex of his unborn child yet!

"She." Ron was the voice of authority. "Trust me on this, it's a knack. What?" he shook his head at the look of sheer disbelief on the other man's face. "I know I'm right, I called it on Percy's son Daniel before anyone else knew. And mum reckons I did the same with Ginny. Not bad considering I was what, a year old at the time?"

Snape stared at him.

"That chair isn't too good for you while you're carrying either," Ron offered off-handedly. "You should have something that supports your lower back better, maybe with a footrest, something you can put your feet up on."

Snape stared again. He had been doing that far too much of late, but then again, he was wondering what had happened to the annoying insect named Ron he'd come to loathe over the years. He had found it increasingly uncomfortable, to tell the truth, but he would rather eat his own living feet than ask a Weasley for advice.

Thankfully Ron solved his dilemma. With a swish and flick of his wand, the severe chair was transformed into a rather comfortable looking padded affair in a deep moss green that nicely complimented the surroundings. Surprisingly stylish for a Weasley. Severus gingerly unpried his fingers from the arms. Transfiguring a piece of furniture while it was still occupied was a tricky manoeuvre, and although mentally he realised that as an Auror Weasley would have to be competent in many forms of magic, he still saw the same grotty first year who couldn't brew a potion to save his life.

Still, it was incredibly comfortable, he had to admit. It even had a footrest! So much better than his usual chair, supporting his back and easing the ache that plagued him everywhere of late.

Not that he would ever show it.

"How's that? Better?"

"How dare you change my seat without asking!" Just the right touch of righteous anger to make the other man cringe.

"Sorry Professor, " poor Weasley, he looked crushed at the reception his gift had gotten. "I'll change it back…"

Severus' eyes widened and he clutched instinctively at the arms of the chair, although he hid it well. Lose this marvellously comfortably seat?! "Change my chair while I'm sitting in it? I think not, Mr. Weasley. My faith in your meagre transfiguration abilities does not stretch far enough to grant you two portions of luck. I have no desire to be pursued and devoured by some rampant creature that was once a piece of my own furniture. No," he settled back, trying to hide how obviously he was enjoying it. "Leave it as it is." _And later, I'll see if Minerva can create replicas for the staffroom and my quarters..._

Ron wasn't fooled in the slightest. Damn him. He cocked his head to one side and studied Severus as one would some rare new creature. "You're welcome, " he said simply.

"Thank you." Damn damn double damn, the boy was _looking_ at him, in a disconcerting way that reminded him of…of...

No.

Something must have shown on his face. Ron leaned down a little self-consciously and started to do up the buttons of Severus' coat, not meeting his gaze. "You know, you're different from what I remember," he said softly, pulling the robes closed again, returning his former teacher's dignity to him. "You've changed."

"I know, " Snape deadpanned. "Abysmally, I fear. I have completely failed this year to make a single first year soil their undergarments in abject terror of me. I blame the pregnancy." His eyes swept the classroom critically, anything to escape that damnable gaze. "Thank you for your efforts, meagre as they are Mr. Weasley. I think it's time you took your efforts elsewhere before you feel the urge to turn my cauldron in a bassinet. Lupin is once again a member of staff, perhaps you can see if you can turn that abominable friend Black of his into something resembling a civilised human being."

Ron's lips twitched again, then with an exaggerated hand motion he bowed at the waist, bidding Snape farewell as a true master, receiving another raised brow in return. Chortling, he left he dungeons in search of Remus and Sirius.

He wasn't completely sure why he was here - apart from the chance to laugh at Snape, never a thing to turn down - but he was glad he had come.

Who would have thought the greasy old bastard had a heart and a sense of humour buried in there?   



	15. Chapter 14

Ron concluded his little story still chortling at the memory, completely unaware of how Harry had hung onto every word. He hadn't been there, so he relied on any memory, any anecdote, no matter how small.

Ron's story left him more disturbed than the others. It had been far more comforting for him to form a pleasant picture from the other stories he had been told, to paint an image of Snape, protected and supported by the staff. But Ron's story invited a more disquieting picture into his mind - that of Severus, lonely and vulnerable, left alone in his dungeons, and that scene was distressingly easier to see than loving joviality.

Guilt started its hollow echo again. Self-blame was such an easy game to play, and he had plenty of incentive.

A lightly freckled face poked itself into his line of sight. "You look like shit," Ron announced cheerfully. "Want to grab a sarney? I'm famished." There was more than just food on the agenda however, he was planning on seeing if he could get his old friend to open up. Harry like this was…just not right. Not Harry at all, some thin haunted stranger.

"hmm?" Harry shook his head. "Yeah, all right." He pushed himself up off the stair, wrapping himself in his thoughts.

Ron didn't question his presence at the Castle, assuming Harry had also been contacted along with the others when Snape had been attacked. Hogwarts took care of its own. And when one of their own had been taken, two generations of staff and students alike had risen to the call.

Except one.

The most important one.   
They had barely taken three steps before an oddly familiar voice reached their ears. "Ron…RON! I swear you're as deaf as a post sometimes…." Ron grinned, then spun around, dashing back down the hall.

"HeeeeeeeeeeeerMIONE!" he snagged her in a bearhug, swinging her around in a circle. "Where have you been?"

Hermione laughed as they both staggered around the room in a drunken waltz. "Out looking for Professor Snape's daughter, the same as you." She pulled herself free and smoothed down her robes, reaching out automatically to rub at a smudge on the end of Ron's nose. "We just got the owl from the Headmaster that she was found. She wasn't hurt, was she?" at Ron's quick headshake, she let out a sigh of relief. "Oh thank goodness. Hello Harry!" The Auror found himself with an armful of delighted hug. She paused and blinked at him. "No glasses! It suits you."

For a second Harry reached up in old habit to push them back up the bridge of his nose as Ron made some sound of exclamation, noticing for the first time. The motion petered out before he could make a fool of himself, fingers brushing lightly in the space they used to be. "Ahh yeah. They got too inconvenient when I was trying to work, so I went to a mediwizard for an Ocularis spell. It's permanent too, don't need glasses any more."

Ron frowned. "How come you didn't do that one ages ago then? Woulda saved you a lot of trouble. Remember that time in Hagrid's class when your glasses fell off and landed in that pile of grabfoot shi-"

"It's dangerous to cast permanent body changing spells on someone who's still going through adolescence, Ron," Hermione interrupted in a lecturing tone. "Unless it's done carefully the results can be unpredictable at best."

"Well it worked on your teeth, didn't it?"

Hermione's hand rose reflexively to her mouth. "That was different, that was an emergency…" she started, but the other two had spotted the gleam of a ring on her finger.

"Oh ho!" Ron pounced gleefully. "What's that then? Looks like an _ engagement_ ring, doesn't it Harry?"

"Hmm?" Harry eyes flicked over then widened "Hermione! Congratulations!" genuine affection made both men pounce the witch at once, smothering her in hugs.

"I can't believe you didn't tell us -"

"When's the date?"

" - look at the size of that rock!"

"Air…..Air?" Hermione finally fought her way from the tangle of hugs and grinned at the other two. "We haven't decided on a date yet, but we're planning on soon because – oh, he explains this so much easier than me, if you could just wait until he arrives…"

"Who?" Ron danced from one foot to the other in impatience, nearly knocking Harry over. "Who, who, who? Who?? Do we know him? Go on, tell us!"

Hermione hesitated. Not out of embarrassment, but of what she knew the impending reaction would be.

"Neville."

"Neville…." The two men paused, thinking it over. Then it sunk in. "_Longbottom??_" they shouted in unison. Ron started to howl with laughter.

"Stop that! I met up with him again during my research work. And he really is frightfully good at Herbology, so we were working closely together and things just….happened. You know how it is. And he's not a bit like he was at Hogwarts!

Ron finally got his laughter under control. "So where is the knight in sprouting cabbage?"

"He's out in the stalls, looking for somewhere to put the Pegasus. Don't look at me like that! We couldn't apparate because of the wards and we didn't want to broom in, and we asked it nicely and it said yes…"

"I hope Neville remembers where he put it!" Ron was still laughing.

"Stop that, it's not funny." Hermione smacked him in the arm. "We found out why he was so forgetful." She shook her head. "One of his aunts tried to cast a memory charm on him to make him forget….he was there when the Death Eaters tortured his parents. They didn't find _him,_ his mother had hidden him in time, but he saw…everything…" her voice had dropped to a whisper, tears free on her cheeks and Harry felt their twin in his own eyes.

_Lily, take Harry and go! It's him! Go! Run! _ A sick feeling settled in his stomach. Was that what his daughter had seen?

"It didn't work. It messed up his memories, but it didn't erase what he'd seen. We managed to lift it, but it took a long time and…" Hermione's voice choked off

"That's rough..." Ron said in a low voice.

"Hey, pretty lady, don't cry." The voice was soft, deep, and full of so much love that Ron twitched instinctively. Long arms wrapped around Hermione's waist and Neville rested his head gently on the top of her head.

Harry and Ron stared. Hermione had been right.

Although Neville had changed quite a bit in the last two years of their study, Harry and Ron perpetually saw him as the pale-faced boy with low self-esteem, absentmindedness and a toad he clung to with over-affection. A bully's dream.

Not any more.

Neville had filled out. No longer pudgy, he'd grown into his body, broad-shouldered and tall. Harry had always remembered his hands as being rather damp with a perpetual nervous sweat but the handshake he offered was dry and firm. "Good to see you Harry, Ron." His arms settled back around Hermione and she snuggled happily back against his chest with a rather smug look. "Hear you two are Auror's now. "

"uh, yeah." Ron felt like a poor evolution of a neandertal against this new and improved version of Neville "wet hen" Longbottom. "Hear you're a researcher now?"

Neville flashed them a grin. "She's been talking your ears off, hasn't she?" his hands darted down, tickling, and Hermione squealed in his grasp.

"Neville! Stop that!"

Neville finally relented. "Hermione and I think we're close now to finding a cure to Cruciatus-induced illnesses. The tests have been promising, we're just waiting on permission to try human trials.

"We're hoping my parents can meet their grandchild." At this Hermione leaned back into his chest and he let a hand gently rest on her belly.

"Bloody cheek." Ron muttered, but there was no bite to it, and he embraced her with honest affection. "Congratulations 'Mione!"

Harry echoed the words, but dully. It seemed he would never escape the reminders, or the guilt. And he deserved them, he supposed. His head dipped a little in shame.

"We were just gonna go grab a bite to eat," Ron met Hermione's gaze out of Harry's line of sight and she picked up on the message in his eyes, looking worriedly at the other Auror. Not that any of it showed in her voice, this wasn't the place to try and pry Harry's emotions open.

"Honestly Ron, always thinking with your stomach…"

"Just you wait, if you're anything like our mum was, you're gonna be eating everything in sight - ow! She's hitting me! Make her stop hitting me!"

* * *

The pear still giggled, turning into a large doorhandle - blue this time - and they clattered into the kitchen, talking about everything and nothing, catching up on old times. Harry felt like a stranger, there was so much he'd missed. Deep training, five months worth and then his work had kept him away. No, they hadn't really. They'd just been a convenient excuse.

Filch was there, with the ever-present long-lived Mrs. Norris. He did little more than peer at them suspiciously and lift a lip in a sneer before exiting, mumbling to himself.

"So...is it true, Ron?" Neville asked tentatively as they seated themselves at one of the long tables occupying the bulk of the kitchen. "What we heard? I mean, did Snape really…" he trailed off and Hermione took over.

"Did _he_ carry the baby?" she asked eagerly. "That's what we heard." At Ron's nod her excitement grew. "You mean he actually carried the baby - to term? And gave birth? How was she born? The same way she was conceived?"

"Oh leave off 'mione!" Ron turned a sickly pale colour at the thought. He wasn't the only one as all three males at the table turned a uniform pale and shifted their bottoms on the bench.

"Honestly, I don't know what you're fussing about. Especially you. You're going to see it all when _our_ child is born, after all," this last was directed at Neville, who turned impossibly paler.

"Someone change the subject please, " he said desperately. Ron smirked at him and wandered off to see if he could wheedle a snack out of the eager house elves.

"So…" Harry tried to approach the topic casually, but failed miserably. "Do you….uh…You know who the father is?"

"Na, they didn't tell us that." Ron swung into the seat beside him, mouth already half-full of roast lamb sandwich. "There were only a few of the staff in there when they ran the Paternity spell - that woulda been before you two got here with your search group," directed at Hermione and Neville "- and when they came out Dumbledore told us that it didn't matter. I took it to mean he'd just buggered up some potion he was working on and got up the duff from that. Damn these sarney's are nice…"

"You haven't changed Ron. Charming as ever. Thank you," This last was directed at a nearby house elf as Hermione took a proffered plate of biscuits and sat back a bit as the little creature served them all tea.

"It's strange though." Neville stirred his tea with a thoughtful air. "I mean, he isn't just a potions master in the educational sense of the word - he really is incredibly skilled. I can't see him making a mistake like that."

"Yeah. Right. Which is why he's teaching students he can't stand instead of doing something else." Ron snorted. Years of association with Harry and he still couldn't understand why someone wouldn't want to reach for fame, take their skills and blaze across the sky with them whenever they had the chance.

"He doesn't _just_ teach," Hermione poked him with a shortbread. "He does his own research work - his compendium on comparative ingredients is virtually a **bible** for any serious researcher into potions, and we did owl back and forth quite a bit - he helped us with the most crucial breakthrough. We wouldn't be anywhere near as close as we are now without his help. I still can't believe he didn't tell us!"

"Shame most likely." Ron choked down the last of his sandwich unrepentantly. "I mean look at it. Either he stuffed up a potion and didn't want to admit he'd blundered, or he took it up the arse from someone who'd pissed off, leaving him holding the baby. Personally I think it's the former, I mean think about it, he's an alright bloke now he has a kid, but the man still has to be passion's most unlikely plaything in existence."

Harry made some sort of grunting noise while under the table his hands gripped his knees tight enough to splinter bone and his eyes committed murder.

"I have to admit though, he does love his daughter," Ron was oblivious to the impending doom sitting next to him. "I swear I never thought I'd say it, but I only hope I'm half as good a father as he is when it's my turn. You shoulda seen him when he was pregnant!"

"I did." A head popped out from the middle of the table. Ron yelped and sent his second sandwich flying into the air.

"DON'T DO THAT!"

Someone had to say it, so this time it was Neville taking great pleasure in NOT being the one who'd damn near wet his pants. "Hullo Sir Nicholas."

"My my my, this is a happy reunion!" Sir Nicholas beamed at the little assembly. "Young Neville, Miss Hermione, Ron, and of course Harry! So pleasant to see you all again, we so rarely get to see the students once they've graduated." He seated himself neatly beside Ron at the table and looked mournfully at the pile of sandwiches. "Oh, to eat again..." He shook himself. "Anyhow, in answer to your questions, I don't believe Professor Snape accidentally stumbled across the potion that can make men conceive."

"Why's that then?" Ron fished a pickle out of a jar and sucked it down with a pop!

"Because he already knows it. The Friar told him, of course. It's simply a more complex variation on the fertility potion that was created for women as I understand it. The Friar was the one who developed it in the first place. He does like to spend time down in the dungeons with him – when the Baron isn't there of course. Can't see why," he sniffed disdainfully. "Most ungracious man, that young Professor Snape.

"What was he like?" Neville asked curiously. "When he was pregnant, I mean. He didn't have any trouble, did he? Everything went all right?" Harry felt oddly touched by this strange show of concern Longbottom had for a man who used to make it his hearts delight to terrify him, but Hermione didn't seemed fazed at all, adding her own gentle enquiry.

Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington set himself a little more comfortably on the bench. "I suppose that would depend on how you would define trouble, " he began slowly.

The ghosts were all a-flutter over the newest addition to the Hogwarts family. Many of them had had children of their own, long ago, and a few had even seen their descendants appear amongst the ever-changing sea of faces. Not that they had ever mentioned the fact - while it was one thing to know one's ancestor was a friar, a knight, or a baron of unspeakable cruelty, it was quite another to meet said ancestor face to face.

The fat Friar of Hufflepuff positively bubbled with excitement. Children among the staff, it had been far too long. Whereas the others tended to worry and theorise about whom the other father was (and several of those who had been privy to some surreptitious meetings between Severus and Harry had their own suspicions) the Friar was completely unconcerned with that fact. One would almost think _he_ was the father the way he had pottered about the castle, his usual cheerful grin stretched to the point where it seemed that the top of his head might topple off. His usual visits to the dungeons became ever more frequent - much to Snape's chagrin it appeared - and the rest of his time was devoted to long talks to Professor Sprout and suggestions as to which herbs would best be grown for the coming months.

Peeves was his usual obnoxious self and took to throwing diapers and contraceptives at Snape whenever he could garner the most embarrassment – although heavens knew where he'd gotten them. Right up until the point where the Baron took him aside and said a few words the other ghosts couldn't hear, no matter how hard they strained.

After that, Peeves had positively crawled whenever Severus was in a room, to a point that was almost sickening. The Baron on the other hand, was keeping close by the dungeons, some said to protect the head of his house, although others privately thought this was at the behest of Snape himself, simply to keep the overeager Friar away from him.

Sir Nicholas himself maintained a respectful distance. Although he was delighted with the news - a child! Who wouldn't be? - he was also aware that Severus Snape was, and would always remain Severus Snape and no doubt found his newfound status as Hogwarts Pet Project an irritant more than anything else. Irritants led to stress, and that in itself would not be good for him, or the baby he carried within him.

But of course, that didn't mean he couldn't watch. One of the wonderful things about being a ghost was that you could hide your presence from the living.

* * *

Severus pinched the bridge of his nose with two fingers, his other hand once more finding its way to rub at the ache plaguing the base of his spine as he irritably swept his reams of parchment and potions ingredients aside. It was useless, his long elegant handwriting becoming crabbed and slanted with frustration as he'd worked at the latest information Longbottom and Granger had sent him.

He had tried seating himself on a stool while he worked, but it simply pained his back more. It was a useless venture anyway, he was constantly on his feet gathering ingredients and tomes of reference.

He was working from a chemical premise. Flat out refusing to even subject a test animal to the Cruciatus, he approached the problem from a different angle. If a potion could be created that simulated the effects and aftermath of the curse, it could be broken down as to which ingredient affected which part of the mind and body, and which counter measure could be used. A high risk, but one that could provide them with a starting point, no matter how remote.

Unfortunately, while he was the ideal subject to test the potion on, having been subject to the Cruciatus himself more than once to satisfy the sadistic whims of Voldemort, he was unwilling to take the risk now he was with child. Instead, he was left puttering about, relying most only guesswork and his own knowledge of potions. However, he reluctantly conceded, it was time to admit his inability to the other two.

Not that they had any idea he had been using himself as a test subject - they would have insisted he stop at once, which would have left them far behind their current stage of progress, and done no good to any of the hundreds of people they were trying to help.

No, it was time to admit that he was now less than useless to the pair in their endeavours. He wrote a short note, claiming class workloads and other research as his reasons, tying it to the leg of a waiting owl before making his way to the comfortably stuffed chair by the fire.

A slight groan escaped his lips as he sank into the heavenly depths, easing his poor feet up onto the matching stool.

Ahh, Christmas. Not so much a season of joy and giving, but a relief from the endless waves of students hell-bent on driving him insane.

And the staff!

The hardest task set to him was of course, Remus Lupin. Not so much Lupin himself, but the fact that he was part of a matched pair. Wherever Lupin was, sooner or later, there would be Black. The last of the Marauders, he supposed they felt some idiot kinship and urge to stay together. Thankfully, Black had had the common sense to stay away from Snape. It would have been so hard to explain to the Ministry the sudden appearance of his new black grim-fur rug had the situation been opposite.

Still, at least Lupin's presence meant he no longer had to sit directly beside Hooch during meals. The woman was unbearably full of idiotic bonhomie, with her booming voice and revolting attempts to 'Buck him up.' At best, she overshot by several letters of the alphabet in what she achieved.

And she kept _touching_ him! The woman had no concept of personal space. Piling vegetables on his plate, flicks of his hair, pats to his stomach, all accompanied by that obnoxious voice telling him to get out more in the fresh air, it was better for his baby.

He shuddered when he recalled the time she'd decided to give him a massage mid-meal. The snickers from the school had been bad enough, but easily quelled, although he had the feeling his trademark glare wasn't quite as effective with his eyes bulging in sheer stunned affrontry.

He twitched unconsciously. Those hands descending down on him and rolling him around like a sack of meat. The woman massaged about as well as she did quiet and sedate.

Thankfully, she was _not_ spending this Christmas at Hogwarts. Instead she was spending it with her nephew, Hamish, who lived in some horribly obscure village in Scotland. What was the name of the place? LockMoo? Lochdubh? Something like that. It could have been Loch Ness for all he cared as long as it mean he had two weeks free of her.

Minerva also was not spending the Yule season at the castle. She was staying with an old friend in a visit promised before she had found out about his condition. Although she had offered to break it off, he had urged her to go. He didn't need babysitting, although her presence, he would indeed sorely miss. Out of all the staff she had been one of the few to keep her head, and they had taken to quiet Sunday afternoons together, tucked up together in the warm of her office, drinking tea and talking little of nothing. She had rapidly become the only bastion of calm in his life, which seemed of late to be degenerating into accelerating lunacy. Kindness from the Weasley twins for Merlin's sake!

The clock above the fireplace ticked away a slow minute and Severus found himself brooding. Fear - and longing. Where there was Lupin, there would be Black. And where there was Black, there should have been

No.

That was past. And it should stay there.

The clock ticked another minute.

Christmas eve.

He reached for a book and tried to read for a while, the words skittering past his eyes, seen but not understood, turning a page for the look of the thing before letting it slip from boneless fingers, staring at the fire. Two weeks. Two glorious weeks, no students, nothing but freedom. Most of the staff gone, invitations successfully fended off, even Dumbledore had been persuaded to leave him alone after a misguided attempt to include him in the festivities and a sparkle-eyed suggestion regarding Santa Claus had left Snape so purple with apoplexy that the older wizard seriously feared he would work himself into a miscarriage.

He was free. A glorious evening of unrivalled idiocy and he was well clear of it. Nothing but a warm fire.

The clock ticked away another minute, tiny slices of his life being nibbled away.

Nothing.

It occurred to Severus that he had never felt so lonely before in his life.

It was mood swings, hormones, that was all, that was the only reason why the hesitant tap on the door to his chambers had sent him scurrying to answer it, pathetically eager to see another face, eager for any company at all.

And they were the only reason why he accepted Remus' invitation to spend the evening, hands clutching eagerly at the gilded Christmas card. The corridors seemed unreal, the sounds of the party in the Hall echoing dully through them and he found himself hastening his steps despite Remus' slow, considerate pace, breath coming in quick little puffs, desperate to stay with the other man, somehow afraid that he would lose sight of him, be left alone in these cold, torchlit halls, forever outside.   
Lupin's quarters were warm and full of light, a marked contrast to his own stark rooms. Christmas cards and odd decorations potted the room, a giant tree dominating a corner, charmed snowflakes twinkling merrily in the cheerful air. He halted uncertainly, fingers dancing over the raised surface of that gilded card in his hands. Sir Nicholas rose from his chair, bowing politely, but he was staring at the huge black form sprawled in front of the roaring fireplace.

Remus followed his gaze and grinned. "He claims it's warmer for him under all that fur. Personally I think he just does it to hog the rug in front of the fire." He nudged the indolent animagus with one foot and got a sleepy yawn for his troubles.

Severus hovered near the door, desperation taking a different slant. Christmas with Black was not his idea of an ideal situation. Although normally he would have taken a delight to being the proverbial thorn in the other man's arse, there was a lot of bad blood between them. It had started with attempted murder and degenerated from there and no matter what anyone else claimed, or an official pardon he still knew that Sirius Black was a serious concern. Worse than that, he was a danger, both to himself and his unborn child.

"Come in, Severus." Remus was already fluffing a few cushions and settling them in a comfy-looking chair by the fire. "Sit down and have a drink to celebrate the season." He reached out a hand as if to guide the other man to the chair and Severus stepped back out of reach.

"I do not feel that well, and I doubt an evening in the presence of your omnipresent mutt will improve matters." That, at least was no lie. He had been feeling off-colour and light headed all day, a situation that the trek from his dungeons to Remus' rooms had not helped. In fact, he felt downright ill, although he attributed the latter to the peculiar smell of dog that seemed to permeate the room. For gods sake, the man was an animagus capable of becoming a canine, not the other way around!

The dog in question got up from its sprawl and gave a deep growl, advancing on him.

Severus' already rather frayed nerves gave a nervous twang and he backed away. The light-headedness that had been irritating him all day increased with his blood pressure and he tried to calm himself down, one hand on his stomach. There was no reason for this, he was safe, surely Remus wouldn't let him…

Sirius grinned a doggy grin at him and he suddenly noticed how big and sharp those teeth were.

"Severus?" He could feel Remus' gaze on him, but he was hypnotised by the sight of the dog in front of him. It was big. Massive, in fact. Very, very large indeed, with muscles moving like coiled springs under the coat. That in itself was unnerving enough, but adding to it the fact that the man inside had cold-bloodedly sent him to his death at age sixteen…

He had to get out of here. Now.

The dog trotted closer, head cocked to one side, a querulous whine issuing from the back of its throat.

"Master Black I believe you should move away…"

Sir Nicholas' warning flickered dimly at the edge of his hearing as Severus backed away further, almost tripping on the edge of a rug. His mind helpfully provided him an image of what Sirius would most likely do to him once he had him on the ground and his unease became a full blown panic fit as he scrambled backwards until he felt the wood of the door pressing into his shoulderblades. He really was feeling quite ill now, his head was spinning and flushed with heat and knew he was panicking unreasonably, hands flying to his stomach in protective instinct. "GET THE HELL -"

And then the world did an odd little dip and swirl and vanished completely

_"SEVERUS!"_

* * *

Something soft and cool was gently brushing his face, smoothing over his cheeks and forehead.

" - poor fellow had a rather nasty shock -"

" - is the baby all right?"

"- I think so, I thought I felt - "

"- he's waking up…"

"Severus?" A voice echoed solicitously in his ears. "Are you all right?" His eyes fluttered open and stared right into the eyes of a certain Sirius Black. His heart did jump at that, but thankfully the mind-chewing terror of earlier had faded somewhat.

"Get away from me."

Black pulled the washcloth away from his face and stepped back, folding it into a basin and taking a seat a safe distance away. Snape realised he was lying on a soft surface, and beyond Sirius there were two more faces peering concernedly down at him. He pushed himself up a little on his elbows, and Remus' hands rushed to help, easing him up and pushing pillows to support him.

"What happened?" and exceeding idiotic question, come to think of it, but the first that sprang to mind.

"You got a little unnerved by Sirius I think," Remus said tactfully. "I think the excitement was too much. You're safe, you know he wouldn't - "

Thankfully Sirius wasn't quite as diplomatic as Remus. "I won't hurt you or your baby, Snape," he said in a quiet, but serious tone. "You may be a greasy little son of a bitch, but the baby isn't. Neither of you will come to harm from me, I swear on that. I won't hurt an innocent."

Severus was tempted to sneer something back about his own innocence on _ that_ night so many years ago, but the sheen of truth and sheer concern in the other man's eyes drew it back before it reached his tongue.

"Do I need to call Madam Pomfrey?" Sir Nicholas hovered at the end of the bed, ready to flit out of existence and into the witch's quarters in a heartbeat.

Severus paused a moment on that last question, taking stock. Physically he felt well enough, if a little weak, and he wouldn't be dashing to his feet any time soon, but his daughter - despite himself he had taken to using Ron's prediction as gospel - was bumping quite happily along in his belly and there was no pain.

"No," he said finally. "I appear to be...unharmed." Now his panic had worn off he felt incredibly foolish.

"You probably had a fainting spell. It happens sometimes, Lily used to get them if she spent too long on her feet, or moved too fast," this little tidbit came from Sirius, who risked moving his chair closer. He didn't attempt to touch Snape, for which he was oddly grateful. He didn't think his newfound calm could stretch quite that far. "When was the last time you ate?"

Severus lifted the corner of his lip in a sneer, but his biting reply was cut short by a rumbling sound. Betrayed by his own stomach, which was far more interested in the prospect of food than in cutting down old enemies.

A plate wafted under his nose and he glared at it, moving the glare up the hand proffering them, along an arm and straight into Lupin's face.

"Eat." Remus said in a surprisingly firm tone. "You won't do yourself or the baby any good if you faint again. Sirius barely caught you this time as it was." His face gentled and he sat himself on the edge of the bed, blocking the view of the other two. "They're ginger snaps," he said softly, pushing the plate closer with a peaceable hand. "Your favourites."

Snape felt oddly touched by the gesture. Remus, he knew, couldn't stand the things. They revolted him to the point where he refused to even have them in his rooms. Reaching out, he gingerly took one.

Remus smiled. He couldn't help it. Severus looked nothing more than an oversized child, tucked up in bed with his hair mussed, working away deliberately at his treat. Reaching out, he let his hand hover for a moment over the other man's ripe stomach, waiting for a negative reaction before letting it lower whisper-soft down to touch.

The infant inside gave a lazy roll and kick and he smiled in pure unaffected delight. "Merry Christmas, little one," he whispered softly.

"Well then, " Sirius broke the moment, pushing himself out of his chair. "Let's get this party started!"

* * *

And started it was. And continued….

And continued…

Severus felt well enough to move from the bed to the chair by the fire, feet propped up on a pouffe, tray of snaps beside him, watching the small celebration. Pain shadowed his eyes as he watched the two men trade in-jokes, old japes, references he didn't know.

This wasn't his world.

Laughing, an extremely tipsy Sirius was attempting to create a drink that Sir Nicholas could savour, mixing stronger and fouler variants of every alcoholic beverage he could get his hands on, and a few he'd made up on the spot, finally setting them on fire, claiming the resulting blue flame was a ghost of a drink.

It was their Christmas, not his. Their season, their joy. He didn't belong. He never had. Never would.

Remus roared out of nowhere, tackling Sirius and the two men wrestled playfully on the floor for a few moments, chanting the words to some song he didn't know, and given the rather…indelicate…lyrics probably wouldn't care to. Severus used the moment as a distraction to slip out of the door.

He made his way slowly back to his dungeons, leaving behind him that warm, cheerful room and company, trailed silently and invisibly by a concerned ghost. Once inside, he seated himself on the edge of his bed, one hand resting on his pregnant belly in an unconscious attempt at comfort, eyes gazing absently around the room.

It had never seemed so cold and lonely.

A muted silence settled over the little group. Behind them, Harry could hear the house elves doing whatever it was that house elves did. Sir Nicholas watched, waiting. He'd deliberately omitted the end of his tale, of how young Lupin had left Snape to his solitude for a bare half hour before tapping on the door, another plate of biscuits in his hand, a bottle of Bailey's tucked under his other arm. Of how he'd merely sat there quietly with Severus, saying nothing, the crunch of biscuits, the clink of glasses and the crackle of a warm fire the only sounds in the room well into the night. Of how Severus had found peace and company after all that evening.

"I should have sent that invite like our mum wanted to..." Ron said quietly. He felt a sudden, overwhelming sense of empathy.

"You could have, but Severus will be Severus. He wouldn't have accepted, would he, _Harry,_" Sir Nicholas stressed gently.

Neville and Hermione caught the byplay, eyes darting to one another before locking onto the Auror. Ron missed it, empathy rapidly transmuting to anger.

"That's not right. It's just…It's just not fucking RIGHT!" He slammed a fist down on the table. "I don't care if it's Snape. I don't care if it's fucking you-know-who, no one deserves that!" the images the ghost had painted for them blazed full score in his mind, perhaps deeper than they had for the others because he was from a large family, and Christmas was always a time when you were loved. Even when your family was far away, you knew they were there, they would always be there for you, and even if there wasn't much to go around, it would be shared with you because they _loved_ you.

And to spend that season alone, knowing that no-one cared, watching those happy emotions and loving gestures from the outside like a starving child with its face pressed against a sweetshop window…

"It shouldn't have been like that. He shouldn't have had to do it alone! When I think of that bastard who fucked off and how he would have been…" he sputtered off into utter furious incoherency, envisioning some faceless man laughing piggishly in the warm. His hands clenched, as if wrapping around an invisible neck. "I just want to…"

"Want to what?" Harry's voice was dull, lifeless. Inside, he felt something inside him crack, some wall that he wasn't even aware of. Rampant guilt, building to a crescendo, a martyr's cry. "Want to beat him? Make him hurt?" even as the words slipped past his lips he realised that _was_ what he wanted. Something physical. To be punished, kicked, beaten with both words and fists, to HURT for what he had done. It was too much. Too damn much. He wanted to pay in blood, be cast out, knocked off the horrid pedestal he'd been placed on and more. The enormity of it hit him over and over again, Faces and thoughts of the past were hammering into him, breaking from the place he'd sealed them away into for so long. Thoughts he hadn't dared to think, ripping through him until there was nothing left but paper shadows and tattered shreds. Agony upon purgatory upon pain, the thousands of screams he'd never let pass his lips since he was twelve years old, sealed away - hark at the resilience of the child!

And the ego. The sheer ego of his actions.

Severus was right. His peers, his betters, they'd all bowed to him, and he'd come to expect it. The poor abused child of the muggle world, the prince among men in the wizarding world. Fantasy escapism, he'd warped, corrupted under what they handed to him so easily.

Walking out - oh, he had to be the one with the power even then. It was easier to leave than to give even a little, to go and bury himself in his work, to sever all ties, even those to his friends and family. It frightened him, what he'd become. Tired of the old toys, time to toss them aside and look for new ones. Life was so much easier that way. What the hell had happened to Harry Potter? Who was this man, this horrible man who had done all of this, had done it so easily?

Harry's eyes were locked into some distance only he could see. "He has to pay," he whispered softly. "Pay for what he's done. He has to hurt. He needs to hurt…" His eyes flickered, frightened birds locking onto the man beside him. "I have to hurt. He's here's Ron. I'm here. I'm right fucking here. It was me. IT WAS ME, ALL RIGHT? _I'M_ HER FATHER. I'M THE BASTARD." 


	16. Chapter 15

Silence fell across the kitchen like a thick blanket. Even the House Elves stopped in their work, motions petering to stillness, large frightened eyes staring at him.

Then sound came flooding back.

"Oh, _Harry,_" Hermione said softly. "How _could_ you?"

"Well….I'm sure you had your reasons…" Ron started awkwardly.

"Oh yes," Harry spat. "And that makes it all right. The bastard who fucked off isn't a bastard if he's Harry Potter, is he? Honestly Ron you're so...BLIND." He was standing now, and shouting, and he didn't give a damn. Self-disgust and anger boiled inside him, a huge pent up fury begging to be released. "I think you'd forgive me if I was Lord Voldemort. Anything's All Right if Harry does it, is that it?"

"Well what the hell do you want me to say, Harry?" Ron blazed back. "You want me to tell you that knocking someone up then pissing off is a shitty thing to do? Because that's what I think. I think anyone who'd abandon their own CHILD is a piece of shit bastard who - " his fist whirled around automatically and Harry made no move to avoid it.

Neville caught it in his own, arm trembling with the effort. "Ron," he said in a low voice. "No."

And that was enough for Weasley to get his control back, to stop himself, to take a deep breath then continue softly, with effort. "You're not like that, Harry. I know you. I'm trying to understand." He reached out, putting a hand on his friend's shoulder. "Help me understand."

Two other hands joined Ron's. "Tell us Harry, please." Hermione whispered.

"You're here. That means you're trying, that counts for something. Please Harry…" Neville's deep voice joined the others.

He'd expected to hurt. He'd wanted to hurt. To be punished. He'd counted on their anger, not on this awful, crippling kindness.

"I-I didn't know…" he stuttered, like a child. "He never….I didn't…I didn't KNOW!" He was crying again, it seemed that was all he did lately, as if he was drowning in an ocean of sorrow. The blame was his, laid on him by accusing hand after accusing hand. It crushed him, burned him, trapped him in a mental torment so huge he needed something physical to let it bleed, to let it come out with the blood.

"I would have….I would have been there…but I didn't know…it went bad…it went so bad so fast….."

The story poured out of him - no, _ripped,_ huge chunks of his soul being torn away. He had had it all, then the fates had torn it from him in a single day, what should have been the most glorious day of his life.

The battle was over.

Voldemort, the Dark Lord, You-know-who was finally gone.

Corpses of death-eaters scattered the ground, some dead by the hands of the side of light, others by the hand of their own Lord, who had little cared who had been in the way of his curses and magics as he had unleashed the powers of hell.

Ron sat on the ground in shock, leaning back against Dumbledore's supporting body, staring stupidly at the ruined mess of his hand. Remus crouched beside him, wand out, muttering frantically under his breath to do what he could. Sirius staggered up and sank down beside them, Hermione cradled in his arms. She had taken a bad blow to the head, but was conscious, a shaking hand reaching up to touch the bloody gash left from white-hot shards of exploded rock.

Harry and Snape….

Were having a screaming row. It had started early on, when Harry had sent their carefully planned strategy to hell, running into the open, invisibility cloak left streaming in the wind behind him the instant it became apparent that Voldemort wasn't planning his standard humiliation of Snape, but this time intended to outright kill him.

The distraction had blown their plans to hell, and saved the life of one Severus Snape - who had immediately leapt to his feet, wand out and blasting, screaming at Harry for being such a fucking idiot.

And it was still going.

Smoke-stenched and bloodied, swaying on their feet, they shouted at each other, bare inches apart, oblivious to all else. "You stupid little shit! You nearly got yourself killed!"

"ME? What about you! You goddamn stubborn son of a bitch, do you think Voldemort was going to give you a kiss? HE WAS GOING TO KILL YOU!" Reaction set in and he started to shake. "He would have killed you. You would be dead…"

Snape reached out and grabbed him by the arm, apparating them straight to his dungeons. The wards around Hogwarts were useless now, all but shattered by Voldemort's final attack, striking right at the heart of the biggest threat to him.

As soon as they were formed, he grabbed hold of the other man, tightly, wrapping him in his arms, feeling him shake and jerk in his embrace. Harry was breaking down, shaking uncontrollably. Truth be told he didn't feel that steady himself, the aftermath of the battle hitting them both hard, taking comfort from the warm body in his arms, rubbing his hands up and down the other man's back. "Let it out…shh…let it out…." It was over. Merlin, it was over, the spying, the humiliation, the back-stabbing the double play, the masks were shattered, the terror was gone. It was over, finally over.

"You would have died…" Harry murmured, over and over. "He would have killed you.. he would have killed you…" he pushed himself free. "You wanted me to let….you wanted me to let him kill you!" hysteria pushed his voice higher and louder. "You wanted me to! Why? Why do you do this? Why are you a martyr? _WHY DO YOU ALWAYS PUT OTHERS BEFORE YOUR OWN LIFE??_" The desperate shout faded, leaving behind a scared young man. "Why do you always treat your life like it's nothing?"

Anger flashed in Snape's eyes, then he lunged forwards, grabbing Harry by the collar. "Because it _is_ nothing," he hissed, tears fighting in his eyes. "You stupid, **stupid** boy, have you learned _nothing?_ This wasn't a game! The heroes don't always win and trot off for a laugh afterwards! _This was war._ What is one life compared to the hundreds he has taken? What is it to the millions he would have taken if he had won? Do you want me to tell you what life would have been if he had won from your stupid childish stunt? It isn't pretty, it isn't _nice_ it's full of blood, and pain and **death.**" He released Harry's collar and shoved him aside, face turned to the fire, anger fading to a low, deathly tone. "I lived through that once and I swore if it took my life to end it then it was a small price to pay. And then there's you, our greatest chance, and you damn near threw it away for a fuck."

"A fuck." The words left a bitter taste in Harry's mouth. That was all they were. A fuck. Not even lovers, that insinuated so much more. Just. A. Fuck.

Just.

A.

Fuck…..

Their coupling was fierce, almost savage. None of the usual slow, sometimes playful they both enjoyed, this was brutal, angry. No kisses, no gentle strokes, Harry tore at his robes, ripping them away, almost throwing the taller man onto the bed in a tangle of limbs.

No finesse, no love as Harry wrenched off his belt, shoving his pants to the floor. This wasn't even sex, this was fucking, raw fucking, anger, fear, and a desperation he couldn't even name driving him as he pounded into the man underneath him, shoving Severus' face deep into the mattress, hands gripping thin hips tight enough to bruise, nails drawing blood.

And when he climaxed it was bitter acid, leaving him to collapse across the other man's back.

It was then he realised that throughout it the other man hadn't responded. Hadn't ever reacted, hadn't made a sound. It was like fucking a corpse. No, it was worse, it was like…

Harry stumbled back from the bed in horror. He tripped over his pants, still puddled about his ankles and landed on his backside, scuttling backwards, hands and feet scudding at the floor.

Snape slowly pushed himself up, then sat gingerly on the edge of the bed, oblivious to the stains on the covers, pulling his robes around him once more with an almost painful dignity. "Feel better now?"

The words cut right through him, mind gibbering with horror. "oh god sev," he whimpered. "oh god, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I shouldn't have - oh god" he crawled forwards on hands and knees, reaching out one hand. "I hurt you.."

Puzzlement flickered in those black depths, then realisation.

And Severus' eyes turned to ice.

"Powerful as you are as a wizard, I've never needed to lick the boots of the boy who lived," he said slowly, carefully. "Even if you had tried there would be no way you would be able to rape -"

And then that _word_ was out in the air.

And it was the wrong one.

"What…What is this?" the horror fled in the face of anger, shame transmuting to fury. "Is this some fucking _game?_ Is that what this is to you? You let me…" the anger built up. He was angry at Severus, he was angry at Voldemort, he was angry at the entire fucking **world.** Let became made, like some misogynistic muggle judge accusing the accuser of leading the rapist on. "You made me damn near rape you…What is this, a game? Just a stupid game? That's all it ever was, isn't it?" Betrayal fed the anger, he wasn't thinking straight and he was too damn mad to care.

"I'm not playing any more. I'm tired of this. I'm tired of _you._" He shoved himself to his feet, jerking up his pants. "I don't know what the _hell_ I thought this could be, but I know what it was." He hurt, oh he hurt, and he wanted Severus to hurt, he wanted him to cry, to ache, he wanted him to feel this, he wanted him to **hurt.** "It was just a fuck. Get that, _SNAPE_? Just. A. Fuck. Your words, remember? And I don't need that any more. I'm beyond childish crushes and idiot games. Go find some other child to rape."

A hand slammed against his face, stained fingers curled into a fist. His vision rocked to one side, a nightmarish slanted view of Snape's dark rooms, his trollish little dungeons. His little hole he hid away in like some foul spider.

Harry tasted blood and wiped the stain away from the corner of his mouth. He stared at it for a moment, so bright against his skin. "I should make you pay for that," he said softly. "But I won't. You're not even worth the effort."

Pain drew Snape's fine eyebrows together. "Harry…" he said softly, almost beggingly.

A harsh laugh seared the air. He had gone too far now, too far for redemption. There was no hope for reconciliation, no way to go back where they had been. Nothing. He was out of control, couldn't stop, tearing himself apart and completely unable to prevent it. And he was going to make it hurt, make it final, make sure they both knew it. "You are nothing to me."

And finally, hope died in those black eyes.

"Get out." Long narrow fingers clutched at the edge of his robes, drawing them closer about him in a protective shield. When Harry didn't move, the soft voice became a shout, a scream on the edge of insanity. "GET OUT!"

Harry smirked, and went.

He never saw the punch coming.

"Oh _Neville,_" Hermione pinched the bridge of her nose between two fingers as Ron helped Harry back up on his feet. The Auror shifted his jaw gingerly. Damn Longbottom packed one hell of a punch.

"Sorry Harry," Neville said sheepishly, rubbing a thumb over the knuckles of his right hand. "But you deserved that."

"no...it's ok..." Surprisingly, he did feel better.

"Now the two of you have got that out of your systems can we _please_ sit down and try and act like adults?" Hermione shook her robes back from her wrists and settled down on the seat again, folding her hands on the table before her. "You fucked up, Harry," she said bluntly, the crude word holding all the more impact coming from her. "In a big way. But at least you **know** that, and you're willing to try to make it better." She closed her eyes, fingertips rubbing against her forehead, then took her hand away and stared at the Auror. "You are such an idiot, do you know that Harry? You let your emotions get out of control just like you did at school, and now look what's happened." her gentle reproach was worse than any condemnation from heaven. She knew he was already paying for his actions, the despair in his eyes and burdens hunching his shoulders were testament to that. He didn't need to be told he was a bad boy, he needed help, he needed support - he needed a solution! "Now we have to work out a way to make this all right again...If we even _can_…"

Harry sat back, stunned. It was that easy? No, it wasn't, it couldn't be….

…could it?

Someone else was taking charge, taking all the hard decisions out of his hands…he didn't have to think. Didn't have to deal with it. He felt the heavy, awful guilt he'd been carrying since he found he was a father lessen a little. It was someone else's burden now...and all he felt was an overwhelming sense of relief. Don't face the consequences, let someone else deal with it. Just follow orders... He felt a slow, dangerous stupor settle over him.

And he didn't care.

"That was a well wicked right hook there…"

"Shut up, Ron."

* * *

A roar like a dragon with its tail caught in a slicebill's nest ripped through the air. All about the castle owls, ravens, and various other winged creatures took to the air in sheer fright.

Not that it helped as a huge motorcycle gradually fell down through the jumbled mass of squawking frantic featherballs to touch the ground. Neither of its riders bothered to get off, the man in front simply rode it straight up the stairs and into the main hall.

Dumbledore had heard the racket long before the bike even touched ground and was waiting for them. Ahh, Black and Lupin. No doubt Filch would be furious at the state of the floors, but that was neither here nor there.

Remus was off the back of the bike before it even stopped, stumbling a little. "Albus," he panted. "We got your owl! What happened, is she all right? Was she hurt? Did they - "

Dumbledore caught the frantic man in his arms and tried to calm him. "Remus, Remus, Araminta is returned, safe and unharmed, " he said serenely. Lupin calmed a little at that, but not much.

"And Severus?" he asked anxiously.

" - is on the mend." Dumbledore finished soothingly. Poor Remus. He always did get so concerned when one of his friends was ill or injured. He remembered vividly one Quidditch match where a Slytherin player had "mistaken" James Potter's head for a bludger and sent him off to the infirmary with a nasty head wound. Young Lupin had been beside himself the entire time until the other boy had woken up. And indeed, Remus and Severus had grown to be friends - he'd watched with great pleasure as it had slowly evolved, glad that the potions master had allowed someone to become close to him.

Remus let out a sigh of relief, his entire body sagging. "Oh thank merlin," he whispered, swaying a little in place. "Where are they - I need to…" he trailed off, unable to finish.

Albus knew what it was he needed. It was the same urge that had sent a little parade of staff and student's alike to the infirmary - where most of them had been turned away by an increasingly irate Poppy. The need to see for themselves that the youngest member of their jumbled and muddled family had been returned, safe and sound, and also that Snape was awake, alive, not the horribly pale and broken form that was etched indelibly in their minds. The need to see that their little world was in fact turning back to normal.

The headmaster smiled and gently squeezed the other man's hands. "They're in the infirmary. Poppy isn't allowing visitors, but I do believe she will make an exception for you…" he laughed softly as Remus bolted hurriedly up the stairs. It would do the young wizard a great deal of good to see the little girl who called him 'remuu' again.

"Sirius…" he beckoned the other wizard aside as he made to follow. "A word in your ear, please…."

* * *

"Oh fuck," Sirius said hoarsely, "Harry's her father isn't he?"

Dumbledore's eyes widened. The pair were safely tucked up in the headmaster's office, and he was trying his best to circumspectly warn the animagus of what would most likely be an explosive piece of news from his godson. "I didn't say that…"

Unfortunately, while Sirius was impulsive, rash, and loyal to the point of near blindness….he was also an extremely intelligent man, and it didn't take the brightest of minds to put two and two together in the face of Dumbledore's fumbling speech and get four. "You didn't have to….fuck! You should have told me, Albus. Scratch that, HARRY should have told me - "

"Harry didn't know. And you know the results of the Paternity charm had to be kept in the strictest secrecy. " Dumbledore put a restraining hand on the other man's shoulder. "I know this must come as a shock, Sirius, but please, think before acting. I know Severus and you haven't the best history, but there is so much more at stake here…"

Black shook off his hand and stared at him. "You think I'm worried about a _ grudge?_ I'm not worried about the bloody _grudge,_ Albus!" he sprang to his feet, pacing the carpet. "This is bad Albus, this is very bad, at the very least you should have told Remus!"

Dumbledore blinked, mental processes stuttering to a halt in sheer bewilderment. "Remus? Lupin? Why Remus?"

"BECAUSE HE'S BLOODY WELL SHAGGING SNAPE!" Sirius howled.

Dumbledore paled. "But I sent Harry to the infirmary…."

Sirius' eyes bulged in a way that would have almost been comical in other circumstances. Wrenching the door open, he hit the stairs running, sliding and almost falling on his butt before pounding down the gently revolving steps.

Dumbledore swore for the first time in eighty years. Last time had been when a particularly complex potion regarding Dragon's Blood had reacted rather spectacularly in a fireball that had removed his beard, his eyebrows, and large portion of his workroom. And even then the expletive had been a rather strangled hiss through the whimpers as he'd danced around trying to put out the flames.

"Oh…oh…oh…SHIT!" He stopped, eyes wide and hastily looked around. No one had heard, good. He wrung the end of his beard in his hands. There was very little he was not aware of in the school, but why oh why did THIS particular thing have to have escaped his notice? He'd merely thought that Lupin and Snape had been developing the close friendship that had been cruelly nipped at the bud during that incident so many years ago at the Shrieking Shack. He hadn't realised they had moved on further!

And he'd sent Harry to the infirmary, bolstered with hopes that there might be a way to….

Albus swore for the second time in five minutes and pelted after Sirius.   



	17. Chapter 16

Remus quickly darted up the stairs to the infirmary, taking them two, sometimes three at a time. Albus had been right, he was almost desperate to see with his own eyes that Araminta and her father were safe. Dark images skittered behind his eyes, refusing to be dispelled by mere words, demanding proof, demanding to see, to touch.

That Christmas long ago had started to finally crack the wall between them and they had grown closer to be friends at a time when Severus had desperately needed them. That friendship had flourished and deepened, and to the bemusement of both men they had found they actually had rather a lot in common.

The acerbic wit and seemingly perpetual sneer had hidden a sharp mind and wickedly acidic sense of humour, and Remus had grown to enjoy their time spent together - as had Severus himself. It had started as a simple friendship, a shoulder for support when the potions master had so desperately needed one, but it eventually became more, so much more, and he hadn't realised how much more until the accident.

Severus rested a hand on the pile of books on his desk, staring rather despondently at his seventh-year potions class. Slytherin and Ravenclaw. Fresh from holidays, full of stories of who did what and with whom, completely unlikely to be bothered with anything remotely resembling learning. And they were all his. Oh, joy.

Thankfully Albus had finally learned from the lessons of Harr-

- previous years and stopped pairing Slytherin and Gryffindor together for potions classes. It was a move Snape had pushed for for _years_ - you couldn't have that sort of animosity in an environment where you were dealing with ingredients of this complexity and risk level - especially with the higher year levels. It was a recipe for complete and utter disaster. And since the idiot students seemed incapable of putting aside differences even in such a hazardous environment, the solution was to change the students.

And it also meant he could actually _teach_ his bloody students, instead of playing referee.

"Today, if you are capable of paying attention and drawing yourself away from your sickening adolescent mating rituals MISTER Spriggan I AM looking at YOU - we will be creating the Creosus Argentum potion. Page seventy six in your texts. Miss Solis, please put those cow-eyes aside, I do realise the potions classroom is quite possibly the only room in the school you have NOT indulged in carnal activities in, and I intend to keep it that way." He eased himself into his chair as the girl in question shot him a look of pure evil. "Five points for that glare, although I am taking ten away for aiming it at me, I am your potions professor, not your hexing tutor. Next time find someone else to beta your facial expressions." Behind him, a piece of chalk picked itself up and began to scrawl potion ingredients on the blackboard.

"The Creosus Argentum is a potion I fear a great many of you will find use for. It is traditionally used by those of limited magical ability to gilt items of little value, to turn them into pretty sparkling items of little value that you can then sell for far more than is reasonable to some idiot tourist. For those of you with abilities greater than that of a retarded four year old, it can be used to protect your skin when handling items that otherwise would prove poisonous or dangerous to the touch." He took the moment of rest afforded to him as the students set up their cauldrons and ingredients. Although he had been taking things slightly easier with some classes, both ends of the spectrum - first and seventh years - required constant supervision. The former to prevent them accidentally killing themselves in a bumbling attempt to follow the syllabus, the latter much for the same reason - only with much more dangerous brews. And it was a double, so he had a long session on his feet ahead of him.

An hour into the class found things running decidedly more smoothly than previous years. For starters, no one had attempted a hex, a shove, or to set fire to anyone else. Unfortunately that also meant that since no one was attempting to surreptitiously slip additional ingredients into another student's cauldron, the abysmal failures so far were entirely the result of sheer stupidity. It made him want to weep.

Two cauldrons had been scorched by attempts to heat the brew too fast, another had simply disappeared from reality all together to reappear five minutes later - he made a mental note to ask Dickinson how the _hell_ he'd managed that feat, seeing as none of the ingredients were capable of creating a time-slip - and another four had their contents slowly congealing into a substance with all the consistency of cement, since the idiots tending them evidently found talk of holidays far more important than maintaining a simple fire spell. He was going to take great joy in making those students clean those cauldrons. With a toothbrush.

As he slowly made his way down the central aisle, he shook his head in disgust. Sometimes he wondered why he even bothered - out of the entire seventh year there was a total of two students that had shown any skerrick of the care and passion needed to be a half-decent alchemist. The others would probably join the rest of hoi polloi, relying on pathetic first year fever reducers and aphrodisiacs. Merlin help him, the only two students he'd seen for nearly ten years that had been incredibly gifted in the arts of potion-brewing had been those god-awful Weasley twins - and look what they had done with their skills!

His daughter shifted lazily in his stomach and he rested a hand against it, making an almost-silent soothing noise. Reacting to his agitation, Poppy had said. Smile more, be happy, Hooch had dropped in. He did not do 'Happy', especially when surrounded by pathetic wastrels.

He'd read once in the history of Hogwarts of a time when there were no safety nets for students. School had quite literally been a survival of the fittest venture, and he wondered what would happen if he did lower the protective spells around his classroom - not enough to actually kill any students, just enough to scare the little ignoramuses. It might teach them that there was far more to the subject than tossing random ingredients about and seeing how big an explosion they could create. The idea did have its merits…

Caught up in his musings, his hand gently smoothed over his belly again, what felt like a hand pressing against his palm. Despite his mood, a smile kissed his face. Completely lost in his own world, he failed to notice the cauldron in front that was starting to overboil, until his foot hit a wet patch and he fell flat on his back on the unforgiving stone floor.

The Slytherin students, predictably, were the first to act. Strabo Ferniss, this year's answer to Draco Malfoy was the first out of his stool and by the side of his head of house, before many of the other students had even realised what happened. Stripping off his robe, he pushed it gently under Severus' head, sending the fastest runner in the class to the infirmary, working at the buttons of his teacher's collar - all in a scant few seconds. Snape, for his part, just stared up at the ceiling and tried to breathe.

* * *

Dudley Dickinson, the Boy With The Unfortunately Paedophilic Name as he was also known (the Slytherin long having taken to mocking other students with variations on the infamous Boy Who Lived) pounded up the stairs and along the corridor from the dungeons to the infirmary. Rounding the corner, he ran smack into a certain Remus Lupin, who was on his way to his own class.

Student and professor both fell down in a tangle of limbs, and to Remus' surprise, there wasn't even a frantic apology as the boy simply shoved himself back up to his feet, using the professor's chest as a springboard and made to run off again. A hand gripping the edge of his robes sent him back down as he made an abortive attempt to resume his sprint.

"No running in the hallways," Remus said mildly, peering over at the boy from his position on the floor.

Dickinson rolled onto his back and wheezed over at the professor. "Sir, you don't understand!" he clambered back to his feet. "In the dungeons - Professor Snape - he's had an accident!" More words followed, but Remus didn't hear them, frozen in shock. Accident. Snape. Gods, the baby!

Snapping out of it, he rolled to his own feet. "Get Madam Pomfrey - NOW." The student and professor bolted off in different directions, one to the infirmary, the other to the dungeons, fear speeding both their steps.

* * *

Skidding to a halt after taking the entire last flight of stairs in one jump, Remus knocked over four students before managing to stop himself. Dropping to his knees beside the prone man, he reached out, then drew his hands back. He'd dealt with injuries and illness before but he was completely at a loss. He didn't have the faintest clue what to do with a normal _female_ pregnancy, let alone this!

"Where does it hurt?" he asked gently, risking a safe pat to the other man's hand. His fingers curled around and he counted the rapid pulse under the skin. No serious injuries or signs of pain, Severus looked out of breath and stunned more than anything else. That was a good sign, wasn't it?

Snape was too busy concentrating on breathing, so it was Strabo who answered the question. "I think he's just winded," several of the brighter students had propped the potions master's feet up on some textbooks and fetched the basin of water and cool cloth the student was using to wipe his teacher's face with. "I think he's more worried about the baby than anything else."

Indeed, Severus' hand was splayed flat against his stomach, fingers almost digging in as he frantically searched for signs of life. He closed his eyes and let out a precious breath in relief as after a moment of terrifying stillness, his unborn child began to kick up a storm. The sigh was echoed by Remus as he laid his hand over the other man's, and Snape worked his eyes open and peered at him.

"Nothing to worry about," he croaked, slowly getting his wind back. "Just…slipped…"

"Let me be the judge of that," Poppy flew through the doors, a severely bedraggled-looking Dickinson dragging her medical bag behind. Pushing through the crowd of students, she gently displaced the seventh-year Slytherin and began her examination. It was just a simple fall, true, but Severus now weighed a great deal more than he did normally, and it was all centered on his midsection - and the stone floor was **hard.** Nothing serious, easily repaired and she sighed in relief, starting to work. "What were you working on? Anything that could affect the baby?"

"Don't be an idiot, woman," Snape irritably shrugged off the hand taking his pulse. "It was a simple gilt potion. Creosus Argentum. The ingredient list is on the board - I'm assuming you _can_ calm yourself down long enough to _ read_ it."

Poppy let the insult slide off her with a practiced motion as she scanned through the ingredients list. Good. Nothing harmful. To be frank, she was glad he was as unpleasant as ever. She'd learn from experience that when he got meek and polite it was a signal of something seriously wrong.

Lupin, on the other hand, was another matter entirely.

"Creosus Argentum?" Remus' normally mild eyes blazed with angry concern. "What the _hell_ are you doing teaching a potion like that in your condition!" While it was a fairly stable and innocuous potion when completed, it did require care and delicacy in its creation, and it often proved explosive in the hands of the untrained.

Severus blazed right back. "Who the hell are you, telling me what I can and cannot do?!" He'd had enough of them treating him like china! The staff seemed to be alternating between leaving him alone and mother henning his every move and the dichotomy was driving him more than a little insane. What was next? Allowing him to ride a broom whilst forbidding him to traverse the stairs? "I refuse to pander to the idiocy of my students due to the fact that I _happen_ to be carrying a child! I'm more than capable of bloody well -"

The tirade was too much for his still-recovering lungs and Poppy moved in as he fell back, gasping for air again, a look of dull panic on his face. "Stay calm, Severus, just concentrate on breathing." She moved automatically to block the view of the gathering students, hands gently stroking back his hair. "That's it, slow, even breaths. It's nothing to worry about, you're fine, the baby's fine, you were just winded, that's all." Actually, the heavy impact against the stone floor had cracked several vertebrae in his spine, but they were easily repaired and pointing out the fact would simply upset him more. It could so easily have gone another way, however, and she filed that thought away to bring up later with Albus. No point mentioning it now, Snape was upset enough as it was without adding to the burden.

Apology coated Remus' tone at the display. "I'm sorry Severus. You're right, you're not a child. I just wish you'd be more c-careful…"

The end of the sentence degenerated into a cough and Snape's eyes widened with panic. This time, it wasn't for himself, or his unborn child - it was for the defence against the dark arts professor as he suddenly remembered exactly _ what_ it was he had been having his class prepare. He reached out with shaking hands to grasp the other man's arm. Dammit, the entire classroom was filled with steam from the preparation.

"Creosus Argentum," he wheezed, tugging on the _werewolf's_ sleeve. Remus smothered the last of the cough with his hand, then stared at him, eyes widening in realisation.

Creosus Argentum.

The most powerful ingredients of which were an infusion of black kelp, mugwort….

…and silver.

"Oh dear," Pomfrey muttered. "I'd better get **both** of you to the infirmary…"

* * *

News of the accident had shaken many of the staff and students alike. Once the initial novelty had worn off, Snape's pregnancy seemed to have more of a humorous value than anything else - the man seemed to be doing fine, and his prickly-pear approach at rebutting their early gestures of support had set most of them to simply leave him alone. After all, he carried on as usual with little difficulty that they could see, and the sight of him stalking through the halls with a pregnant belly was rather funny. And it didn't seem to have affected his rather sour disposition in the slightest.

The accident however, blew those notions apart. Suddenly he was vulnerable after all, and many of them realised how fragile his condition was. The accident hadn't been serious, but it had been a wake-up call. And not one of them had seen it coming.

Dead silence fell across the hall as the potions master entered, Remus at his side. Although the damage to his back had been easily healed, he still ached, and his daughter seemed intent on breaking at least three ribs before she was willing to accept his silent apology for the rough ride. Now in his sixth month, he moved slowly, the ache in his back lending an almost ponderous face to his motions, his usual slim form making his belly appear even bigger.

Severus, for his part, was more worried about Lupin. Although Pomfrey had managed to clear his lungs of the potentially lethal concoction he'd inhaled, she had warned the werewolf that they were still weakened, leaving him more susceptible to chest infections and respiratory illnesses until his immune system had time to recover, and he could hear the slight whisper of an asthmatic wheeze from the walk to the dining hall. He clutched the other man's arm almost as much to keep an ear on his breathing as for the support he offered. If he hadn't been so careless Remus wouldn't have been exposed to the damn stuff in the first place.

The pair were closely followed by Poppy and Sirius, both of whom were trying to hover without being too obvious about it.

Shaking a strand of hair back from his face with a curt motion, Severus dealt the room his trademark penetrating stare. The entire Slytherin house was on their feet, a silent salute, uncaring of the craned necks and whispers of the rest of the school. He wondered what the others made of the gesture of respect from the house many of them would have marked the first to taunt and ridicule his condition. Blind, prejudiced little fools.

He nodded his head at them in silent acceptance of the gesture before continuing his way. He was acutely aware of the man beside him, an odd, fluttery feeling deep in his belly that had nothing to do with his pregnancy. He knew that feeling…and it was one he'd thought he'd never feel again.

Besides, what the hell would someone like Remus want with him?

* * *

Dumbledore watched the quartet worriedly as they made their slow way towards the teacher's table, pushing himself up against the armrests a little as if to get to his feet. "Oh dear," he said in a quiet tone, blue eyes muted for once. "He doesn't look well at all. Far too pale…"

"I don't know why you're so concerned, Albus." Her own worry made McGonagall's tone sharp. "It never bothered you during his school years, nor the countless times you sent him to be beaten, humiliated, or **worse** at the hands of you-know-who."

Dumbledore had the grace to flinch under her accusation. "Voldemort, Minerva, his name was Voldemort. And things were different then - it was war."

"Meaning we all suffered enough without willingly giving our own up to that creature!" it was a long bone of contention between them. Refusing to say more - in case she said something that she wouldn't really regret, but would make things uncomfortable between them, the deputy headmistress got to her feet and made her way to pull out the potions master's chair for him - and to her surprise, she wasn't the only one. She was however, the first one there, and the one whose help was accepted.

Severus cast his gaze over the openly goggling school once more, returning their stares with a slight sneer before easing himself down into his chair. By uniform consent, the standing Slytherin waited until he was settled before taking their seats.

The rustle and hubbub died down as McGonagall tapped on the side of her goblet, and Snape took the opportunity to look around at the staff as the Headmaster made his customary speech.

The sudden show of concern was interesting, to say the least. The ever-present cynic in him wondered which ones were true, and which ones were merely mirroring other people. Severus was under no disillusions as to what people thought of him, and two-faced niceties turned his stomach. Well, there was one way to find out, and he was feeling oddly devilish at the moment.

Reaching for a bowl of peas, he stopped, sniffing the air dramatically. "Do you smell dog?" he asked the table at large.

Remus rolled his eyes and attacked his pot pie with a little more enthusiasm than was necessary. "Severus…please…."

Beside him, Hooch began to laugh very, very quietly under her breath.

"I'm sure I smelled dog...my mistake…" a few seconds of blissful silence, then another loud sniff. "Do you smell dog? I'm sure I smell dog! Who on earth would let a _dog_ into the dining hall?" he wondered, practically _ oozing_ innocence

This continued for several moments, Hooch's laughter growing less and less quiet, until finally Sirius snapped, clenching knife and fork in his hands and staring at his plate in wide-eyed fury. "Shut-up shut-up shut UP you greasy little son of a bitch!"

Several members of staff put down their goblets and eating utensils, moving surreptitiously closer to the Animagus.

Severus himself was the perfect picture of injured innocence, resting one hand against his chest. "Me?" He dropped the act and let his face fall into its customary sneer. "And as to the subject of bitches, your knowledge far surpasses mine. As I understand it Professor Flitwick's poodle has taken to walking with a decided limp and whimpering every time someone mentions your name." His tone dropped, slow and even, shaking his head a little in reproach. "Such conduct _ unbecoming_ of a Hogwarts Alumni. Perhaps we should have you neutered. Or perhaps a leash, to stop you traversing about on your little canine trysts. Can you say "Heel, Black?"

"You bloody -" Snape sat back and chortled as Sirius made as if to leap from his seat and promptly disappeared under a tangle of limbs as the entire faculty jumped him at once - Remus included. Oh look, it appeared that he could 'heel', after all, even though it took Dumbledore sitting on his chest.

Oh yes, this entire night would be one to store in his pensieve, to be drawn out and savoured with a warm brandy on cold winter nights.

Oh…and…

Clambering heavily to his feet, he rocked back and forth on his heels, one hand resting on his belly for a moment before picking up a biscuit from the plate on the table, a smirk crossing his face as he threw it insolently to the floor in front of Sirius. "Good Dog." Everyone knew you should use the reward system, after all…

After the fuss had died down and the Animagus suitably chastised (Snape's suggestion of making him eat from his bowl in the kitchen not helping matters in the slightest), Remus shot him an exasperated look, reclaiming his seat. "That was unfair, Severus. You knew I couldn't resist a threat to the pack and pup."

"Pack and pup?" Snape was radiating innocence as he pulled a dish of Bertie Botts closer. "I have no idea what you mean." His fingers flicked though the selection, hunting out the tomato ones - he'd developed quite a liking for them. "Are you raising dogs? By the way, if you're not planning on eating those potatoes…"

Remus gave an exasperated sigh and scraped them onto the other mans plate. "You're well aware of what I'm referring to, Severus. Besides, you _know_ that Sirius won't lift a finger against you."

"Mmm, yes, but do _they_ know that?" the grin Snape shot him was positively Machiavellian as he gestured absently to the rest of the table. Flitwick in particular looked more than slightly displeased - he'd overheard the comment proceeding Sirius' abortive attempt to jump to his feet and defend himself, and even now Severus could see him making mental notes to protect his hideously fluffy ribbon-bedecked "snookums" from the sexually rampant Animagus.

Remus followed his gaze and choked on his pumpkin juice. Without asking, Severus _knew_ the mental image going through both their minds and leaned over, whispering in the other man's ear "Poor snookums…I do hope he used protection, Flitwick strikes me as the type of man to insist on a shotgun wedding."

That did it.

Hooch swung to one side and stared at the Defence Against the Dark Arts professor, shaking her head a little to rid herself of the mouthful of juice Remus had just sprayed into her ear.

"Sorry R-rolanda…" he got out, trying unsuccessfully to clamp a lid down on his laughter. Under the table he smacked the back of his hand against Snape's leg in a plea for him to please shut the hell up before pieces of pot pie began to come out of his nose. Between the juice, the laughter, and the still-present aftereffects of his silver inhalation he was hard pressed to draw a complete breath.

When Snape grabbed his hand, he thought it was simply a mute gesture for him to please stop thwapping the other man. But Severus gave his hand a light squeeze, and there was voiceless concern in those black depths.

He stared into those eyes for a long moment, breath coming back under control without any effort on his part, deepening and smoothing out. He'd never noticed how beautiful those eyes were before…like twin wells plumbing hidden depths of a soul so complex it went beyond intricacy and into beautiful, like higher mathematics at its best.

The skin around those eyes tightened, pain lancing across them and he squeezed the hand back instinctively. "Are you alright?" he kept his tone low, somehow sensing that the other man wouldn't want the attention of the other staff drawn.

The skin eased, fine lines remaining. "It's nothing. Just an ache…" the side of his mouth twitched, then relaxed as Remus carefully slid a hand around behind him, the motion hidden by the high table and began to rub gently.

"Are you sure you're all right?" Remus worried. "Pomfrey was right, you shouldn't have left the infirmary." He took a bite of his pie to cover their conversation, well aware of the hundreds of eyes on them. "I should take you back…"

"No..." Snape murmured. "You know how I abhor the way that woman paws at me every time she gets me into her clutches. Honestly, you'd think she'd never seen anyone with Faery blood in them before."

Remus stopped, fork hovering at his lips. "Faery blood? Sev, **how**…"

"How do you think? I do trust you took sexual education with the rest of us. In fact, I recall you in the back row with Black, drawing moustaches on the pictures of sperm. It's from my mothers side - or father's, whichever term you prefer to use." He was using the talk as a distraction from the maddening pain in his back, and a happy groan slipped from his lips as the ever-conscientious Remus once more began his one-handed massage. "How else did you think I was able to become pregnant in the first place?"

Remus' hand froze. He knew full well - Dumbledore had informed him of the situation when he had arrived to take up the teaching position. Which of course inevitably steered the conversation as to the identity of the other father - something Dumbledore has also warned him quite seriously not to bring up. "I hadn't thought of it," he said carefully.

"Bollocks," Snape's eyes began to lid as those wonderful fingers danced across his spine, easing away the ever-present ache. "I've heard the rumours - everything from a botched potion to a curse to performing a hermaphroditus spell on myself and getting impregnated during a drunken orgy with the entire English Quidditch team. Nothing quite so exciting, I assure you."

But in the end it hadn't mattered how, or who, or even why. Severus had been blessed with a gift, a miraculous, wonderful gift, a daughter, a child. And then she had been taken from him in the cruellest way possible.

It had taken every inch of strength he had in him to leave the injured man, joining the search, terrified that somehow in his absence, without him, Severus would lose his tenuous grip on life. But he'd forced himself to go. Because he knew, while there was a _chance_ that Severus could die, that he wouldn't be there for him…If Araminta wasn't found in time, if she was hurt, or worse…

Then it would become a certainty. Even if the other man recovered physically, it would only be a half-life. Losing his daughter, losing the most important, glorious gift in his life after all that had happened to him would do worse than kill the potions master, it would destroy him. No Dementor's kiss could be as cruel.

Fear sped his steps, warring with the hope racing his pulse as he pelted along the brief corridor. Turning a tight corner, he skidded and nearly fell, colliding with a giant form just outside the infirmary doors.

"Hagrid." He didn't bother to compose himself before the other man. The groundskeeper was the only official member of staff who was aware of the low-key relationship between Severus and himself - low-key due to a little-known rule in the school's charter forbidding relationships between staff after a philandering professor some hundred years ago had cheated on his wife with three other teachers. He'd been aiming for four before the other women had hunted him down and displayed his remains from the Hufflepuff flagpole.

Not that the other man knowing really bothered either of them, seeing as he wasn't exactly known for adhering to the rules side of the fence. In fact, he was quite amiable about the whole situation, beaming fondly at the little family in the making.

But there was no effacious grin on the gargantuan features now, just the solemn, almost hard look of a man faced with an unpleasant, but necessary task.

"Lupin, a quick word if I can..."

Remus reflected that no conversation ever started off well on those words. And he was right. Although the owl Dumbledore had sent had told them Araminta was returned and safe, he didn't say how, or by whom. Hagrid filled him in, and he felt the colour drain slowly from his face.

Harry was back.

Well, **this** promised to be fun.

Anger started a quick curl in his stomach at the sheer affrontry of Hogwarts little lost lamb, but he pushed it back down. He knew the story - he knew it better than anyone else save the two involved - after all, he had been the one to help pick up the pieces. But it didn't belong here, it could wait for later. He had to see Severus, he had to see Araminta, and Hagrid was blocking his way.

And that's when Hagrid dropped his second bombshell.

Remus just stood there, feeling very much like the little goldfish thrown into the proverbial frying pan as the other man quite calmly and with the best intentions began to tear his euphoria apart.

There was sympathy in the half-giant's voice, but it was firm. "'tain't your place now, Remus. Not now Harry's back. He's her father, they belong to him, not you." He reached out and put a hand on the other man's shoulder. "You know that, lad. You and perfessor Snape…it's not like he and Harry were. And it can't be. It's time to stand aside and let the family go back the way it should be."

Remus' eyes closed in twin pain and impatience. "Please Hagrid. Move out of my way." His voice wasn't quite steady and the half-giant took pity on him, shifting aside.

"Yeh know I'm right…" the words followed him inside the infirmary and he damned himself a thousand times over because part of him believed the other man.

A screaming ball of toddler flew across the room and into his eagerly outstretched arms. He just stood there for an endless moment, holding her, letting his frayed and broken nerves align to the face that she was _there_, alive, unharmed. Pressing his face to the crook of her neck, he stifled a sob of gladness. The wolf in him imprinted her anew on his senses, her smell, her feel, part of the pack. The toddler gripped gently at his bangs and cooed into his ear. "Remuu…love you remuu…"

"Love you too, 'minta," he whispered back. Drawing back a little, he kissed her forehead, carding a hand through her hair. Green eyes peered lovingly up at him and he briefly closed his own in response to the evidence shoved into his face.

Cradling the little girl in his arms, he made his way to the sole patient of the infirmary. "Hello, Severus."

Slow, tired, pained movements that made his eyes sting and Snape turned his head to face him. "Remus." Neutral. Safe. A hand reached for his and he wrapped his fingers gently around it.

Poppy cleared her throat and got the hint. This time, she didn't pretend to busy herself with her paperwork - she didn't have to worry about **these** two going for each other's throats - but simply let herself out of the infirmary. Remus would call her if she was needed, and the two friends obviously wanted privacy. She didn't blame them - Remus had been unbelievably upset after the attack, then immediately left on the search for his adopted niece, not even waiting for a search party to be formed, both he and Sirius striking out on that wheeled monstrosity of Black's, hoping their unique skills could find her before the trail went cold.

Lupin waited until she was out the door, then cast a mild charm on it - just enough for warning in case anyone planned on entering. Then he quite unashamedly climbed into bed with Severus, clothes and all.

Both men let out a sigh at the contact, Severus gingerly moving over to rest his head against his lover's shoulder, feeling the werewolf's gentle arms wrap lovingly around him. Soft wuffs of breath ghosted across the top of his head and he gently floated in the sensations. He wasn't one for overt displays of love, but he allowed himself this, this peace. Somehow here, in Remus' arms it didn't hurt so much.

His daughter cuddled down happily between the pair, nestling into the cocoon formed by their bodies. Turning one side, then the other, she eventually settled down with her back snuggled against Remus, head leaning against her father's chest.

Severus smiled, and gently stroked a hand down the side of her face, eyes closing and face turning into the man holding him. "Missed you…" he murmured gently into the hollow of Remus' throat.

"Missed you too…" it was soft, almost choked as a feeling so strong he couldn't even name it rose up in him. He knew what he was supposed to do. Be the honourable man. Step aside. Harry was Araminta's father, something he could never be, not really. There were ties between Severus and the Boy Who Lived that had come before him, and lasted after. He was a poor second, a pauper, he should step aside and play the ever-honourable Gryffindor to the son of an old friend.

And he was **_damned_** if he was going to do it!

"Harry was here…" Severus murmured sleepily. Remus fought the instinct to stiffen at the sound of the other man's name. "Wanted to be a father…" a lazy hand stroked his daughter's hair. "…wanted….to make it right…" he laughed a little at that. "don't want him to hurt her, Remus…" His breath was evening out, slipping into slumber.

Remus pressed his temple to the other man's, turning slightly to brush his lips feather-light over the battered features. "shhh….he won't…." _I won't let him…_ it went unsaid as he slowed his breathing to match the other man's, cradling him as he slid into the healing sleep he so desperately needed.

Closing his eyes, he fought the tears that demanded release, cradling both man and child in his arms. He loved them both, loved them so much and he had almost lost both of them in a heartbeat. He had known something was wrong, he had felt it….and he'd ignored it, and they had almost paid the price.

"Row row row your boat, row row row your boat, row row row your boat…" the lung capacity of the two year old never failed to astound him. Nor Severus - the man would quite calmly verbally dissect a student for asking an innocent question, yet he had put up with the fractured rendition of the song for over ten minutes so far.

"Row row row your boat, row row row your boat, row row row your boat…"

Shaking his head, Remus turned back to the debate in progress. "Are you sure you don't want me to come with you…?" he was nervy, on edge for some reason, some unknown instinct and he'd learned long ago not to argue with his instincts.

Snape raised an eyebrow at him. "I wasn't aware I needed a babysitter to go into Hogsmead…" there was no bite to it, more amusement than anything else.

"Row row row your boat, row row row your boat, row row row your boat…"

"You don't…it's just…something doesn't feel right," Remus confessed. "Are you sure you need those ingredients? Why don't you just send a house elf, or at least floo across…" he was being unreasonable and he knew it. Still didn't stop him though.

"It's a half-hour walk, Lupin. The exercise won't kill us." Severus sat on the side of his bed and gestured to the madly hyperactive toddler. "Besides, look at her. I've _told_ the headmaster not to feed her those abominable 'sherbert bombs' he's so damn fond of, but will the man ever listen?"

Remus laughed and moved to the dresser, deftly avoiding the screaming bundle of energy as she dove between his legs. "You know he loves to spoil her."

Snape grunted. "He doesn't have to deal with the aftermath. Honestly Remus, I swear I should just leave him locked in a small room with her for an hour or so. Perhaps _that_ will get the message across."

The rhythm of the endless chant changed with his words, although the toddler kept running around in circles. "Remuu remuu remuu remuu remuu…" evidently his name was the flavour of the minute.

"We'll be gone an hour, maybe two, I promise." His tone softened, reassuring to the obviously agitated werewolf as he gently tugged the other man down beside him. "Besides, you have those papers to grade. Why you let yourself fall so far behind I have no idea…"

Remus snorted and gave in to the offered cuddle. "Just because I don't subscribe to your method of grading - throwing them up in the air and according marks to how high they go…"

Severus shrugged, the motion carrying both men easily as they relaxed in the privacy of the dungeon rooms, watching the toddler run along the intricate pattern of entwined snakes on the rug. "I honestly don't even know why I bother with that. It's all the incompetent dribblings of sex-crazed teens anyway." He let out a soft _oof_ as Araminta launched herself though the air and into his lap.

"Go papa, go NOW! Wanna see the funny man at potions!" He rolled his eyes and pressed a quick kiss to the werewolf's lips before letting himself be dragged out of the room. "We will return. Count on that."

And he had.

Except….

They hadn't.

He'd almost lost them both, in a second. The two most important people in his life, and now Hagrid was asking him to hand them over. Like they were simply goods, possessions to be foisted off to the highest bidder. They _weren't_, they were people, living, breathing people and his love for them wasn't any less valid or real because he wasn't there **_first._**

But it wasn't his choice.

If Severus still felt…if he still….a sob tore at his chest at the image of Harry sharing Severus' bed, his life. Hagrid's words stabbed at the one insecurity he had, Severus wasn't a whore, he didn't jump into bed with anyone who passed his way. What had been between him and the formerly faceless father of his daughter had been _real_ and his darkest fear was that one day he would come back to claim Severus…..

…….and that Severus would go to him.

But it wasn't his choice. It would never be. It was Snape's and Snape's alone, and if he truly wanted to go…then he would let him. It would tear him apart, but he wouldn't force the other man into something that he no longer wanted.

But if Severus chose to stay with him, Remus, and Harry thought he could just waltz in and take what he wanted…

He had a hell of a fight on his hands.


	18. Chapter 17

Harry made his way up from the kitchens, Ron, Hermione and Neville clustered around him like a little muggle security guard. He felt stronger, more in balance than he had for a long time. For three years, actually. He was still a little stunned at how easily his friends had taken to his side. But then again, that was what friends did – real friends. He'd forgotten what they were like. And even Severus was willing to act for peace for the sake of their daughter. A false sense of serenity, of a storm weathered and passed was slowly creeping in, an ugly wound finally starting to drain clean, growing confidence getting his feet back underneath him. He could do this. He could. It was easy. No longer lost, he knew his moves, he knew his goal. Little steps, Hermione had said. Take it one step at a time, and now the steps were coming faster and faster, a rapid succession. He could do this. He really could. It was so easy…

* * *

Remus stared into the pensieve, white faced, hands clutching it hard enough to shatter the stone. It was Severus'. A house elf had brought it to him not long after the potions master had drifted back into sleep – the other man knew him too well. Knew his questions, knew he would want to know and had made sure that he saw nothing but truth. He couldn't believe what he had just seen, but he had to. Pensieve memories didn't lie. They couldn't.

And the other things he had seen, other images in Snape's life. He hadn't meant to pry, hadn't meant to abuse the implicit trust the other man had placed in him, but they had slithered across his mind, oily black trails, glimpses of things that made him sick, made him feel dirty, soul-filthy.

He put the stone bowl down carefully on the small table beside the bed, the motion sharply controlled, hand shaking a little with restraint. Turning back, he laid a careful hand on Severus' head, stroking a few strands of hair away from the sleeping face. Anger. White hot anger and he knew how dangerous that was. It blinded you, stopped you from thinking, and now more than ever he needed his mind.

For all their sakes.

* * *

Sirius had never run so damn fast in his life. Some part of his mind was a little astonished at how the aged headmaster had managed to keep pace with him, and another part of him wondered crazily at the ability to think random thoughts at a time like this. The rest was occupied with running, pushing his feet faster and faster, lungs dragging in air and shoving it back out his mouth as he pelted along the corridor.

To his relief, the only figures in the hall approaching the infirmary were Hagrid and Pomfrey, engaged in a rather animated conversation. Good. That meant Harry wasn't there yet. It also meant there was a soft-ish surface for the two men to run straight into when they couldn't stop in time.

Dumbledore made a note to reprimand Filch sometime for over-polishing the stone floors as he made some attempt to straighten his robes, gasping for air. Yes, yes, after the first few hydroplaning episodes it did stop the students from running in the hall, but there were some times when speed was of the necessity. "Hagrid," he got out. "Have you seen Mister Potter?"

"Harry?" Hagrid shook his head and set both men easily back on their feet. "Ain't seen Harry since he were in your office, Headmaster." He pulled at his beard for a moment, then shuffled his huge feet. "Professor, Remus is in there with..."

"We know, thank you Hagrid," Dumbledore patted him on the shoulder. "I think it's best if we take things from here – oh, by the way, I noticed that Miss Granger and young Longbottom came in by Pegasus…." He was playing on the other man and he knew it.

"A Pegasus!" The half-giant beamed. "Ain't seen one of them in a fair while. Better make sure the little thing's all bedded down right," he said hastily and made his way happily to the stables, content to leave the matter in the hands of the headmaster. After all, Dumbledore always worked a way to make it right.

Poppy was looking from one man to the other with puzzlement in her eyes. "Headmaster?" she ventured. What on earth was going on?

Dumbledore reached out and gently patted her hand. "It appears that dear Severus and Remus have been rather closer than we all thought…"

"Oh my goodness!"

Sirius sagged against the wall. Well, they were here. And Harry wasn't. The thing about making a mad dash to prevent impending disaster was that you felt a right tit when you got there too early.

And didn't have a plan.

"Well Albus…what now?" his heart was slowly approaching something resembling a normal rate and his eyes were drawn to the seemingly innocent-looking infirmary door. "Go in there and warn Remus? Tell him to stop snogging Snape before all hell breaks loose?"

Albus appreciated the sentiment, although the delivery left more than a little to be desired. "I think that might be the best course of action, yes. Oh dear except I think we may be a tad too late – Harry!" And indeed, there was the infamous Boy Who Lived himself, making his way up the hall.

Harry's strides shortened, stopped, then sped up again at the sight of the trio outside the infirmary. "Sirius!" He grabbed the other man into an honest bearhug, pounding his back.

"Harry!" Black returned the hug just as enthusiastically, letting other matters take a back seat for a moment. Too long. Too damn long since he'd seen his godson. He looked older, more worn, a look that didn't suit him and he said so.

Harry winced, then looked at his boots. Truth be told, this was the meeting he'd been dreading most. Especially given Sirius' background with Snape, and the rather delightful little bomb he was about to explode on the Animagus' head. But he'd rather his godfather heard it from him, than anyone else, and he would find out soon enough. "Sirius…I…Severus…"

Sirius saved him the embarrassment. "I know." He barely stopped himself from saying 'congratulations', unsure if the sentiment would be appreciated. Details could wait. Although truth be told he already knew far more about the potions master's sex life than he really wanted to. And he was quite happily doing a mental tap-dance around the whole fatherhood issue thing. He would deal with it when he did, it was Harry who needed his time now.

The moment stuttered into silence. There really wasn't that much more to say. Harry flashed him a brief smile that faded as soon as it came as he took a good look at the little group of Hogwarts staff waiting in the hall. His gaze flicked from one to the other. Something was wrong here. The smiles seemed forced, the way they were standing, subtly blocking the way to the – and why was Pomfrey out in the hall? He didn't like the odd, tense look on her face. "Is…is something wrong?"

"NO! no… yes…well…" the jumble of voices faded and Sirius took a breath. He seemed to be steeling himself for unpleasant news and Harry tensed. Beside him, Ron paled and Hermione groped mutely for Neville's hand.

The animagus stepped forward and gently gripped the Auror's arm. "Harry," he said kindly, trying to adopt a fatherly tone. "I think you'd better come with me…"

Something _was_ wrong. Something had happened. The colour abruptly drained from Harry's face as Sirius tried to steer him down the corridor, _ away_ from the infirmary. "Oh god, it's Severus, isn't it? Something's happened." He broke free from the restraining arm and bolted for the door as Dumbledore and Pomfrey both tried to grab him. Crazy visions flashed through his head, doom, disaster, god, he wasn't dead was he? He couldn't be! He'd never had the chance to make it right…

* * *

Remus tensed at the noise, arms reflexively tightening around the sleeping man in his embrace. "No Harry Don't go in THERE!" if the ruckus outside the door hadn't woken Severus up, the pile of bodies that crashed through it certainly did. The potions master jerked awake at the noise, leaving the safety of Remus' arms, a cry breaking from his throat as pain ripped though his healing body from the sharp movement.

The werewolf loosened his grasp, gently, tenderly, soothing the other man almost mindlessly. His eyes drifted over the faces on the floor. Stunned, to say the least. Hermione seemed to be competing with McGonagall and Pomfrey as to which woman's eyes were about to fall out of their head first. Sirius and Dumbledore had identical 'ohshit' looks on their faces. Ron…and was that Neville? His eyes skittered over, taking them all in, then locked on a certain face, one that had changed a little over the years since he had last seen him, a little thinner, a little more haggard, but one he still knew.

Harry. Potter.

"Oh, shit." Possibly-Neville said into the silence.

With deliberate motions the werewolf got up from the bed and moved towards the other man. He heard Severus' voice, soft and pained behind him. "Remus, no…" but his voice was drowned out by Poppy, who wasn't half as stupid as people seemed to think she was and had quickly summed up the situation. And it wasn't going to be pretty.

"Out, get out of here, take this out of here RIGHT NOW." A flurry of slaps accompanied her words as she chased Remus and the little group out of the infirmary and slammed the door behind them.

* * *

Harry stumbled back from the door, away from Lupin, barely aware of hands there to steady him, eyes locked on the other man. He felt the false sense of security erode beneath his feet, dragging what felt like crumbling shreds of his sanity with it.

He wasn't…he couldn't have…

No. His face twisted into an odd smile but he knew it didn't touch his eyes. Lupin and Severus?….no. Snape couldn't stand the other man, he remembered. A bare tolerance at best, and poor Remus, he always did care for others.

That was all. That was all. Friends, they'd become friends. Close friends indeed, but just friends. Right?

Right?

Remus fought to see clearly through the anger inside him, dangerously close to the surface. He forced himself to swallow it, nearly choking on the taste. The man, the cause of this fury was in the past. Three years in the past. And although the mirror image of that same man stood before him, they weren't the same. Years changed a person, he knew that. He had to be fair.

Harry crept closer to him, ignoring the expressions on the faces around them. Friends, his mind babbled at him. Just friends. They were just friends. Friends. And Severus needed friends, it was good he had friends, very good.

But there was something to the other man's pose that disturbed his little fantasy. A tenseness to the muscles that shouldn't have been there. An unreadable look in the golden eyes, a sort of…fury, like a storm begging to be unleashed.   
  
He offered a warm smile to the other man. "Thank you Remus. Thank you for taking care of them for me."

At another time Lupin would have heard the warning. Would have seen the brittle sanity behind that smile. Would have gone with a softer, gentler tread. But despite his best efforts, emotions were taking over.

"I wasn't taking care of them for you." He said coldly. "I was taking care for _them._ They're my family. It's what you do for people you love. Not run away when things become too hard for you. They're my family. If not by blood, then by love and it's a damn site more than you ever gave them."

The words were accusations and Harry rebelled against the guilt threatening him again. He was still confused, still hurt, but he had his friends behind him now, he had their support, and this time he knew he was _right_. He was right, dammit! It was his daughter in there, his ex-lover. It was his family in there, not Remus' and he loved them both. He did!

"Get out of my way, Lupin." His voice was steady, controlled. The other man didn't move and the control was quickly lost, voice rasing in an almost scream. "Move!"

Hermione put a gentle hand on his arm. "Harry – "

"No!" he shook her off, eyes not moving from the man in front of him. "Get out of my way Remus, I have the right – "

"The 'right'?" Remus' voice was cold, harsher than anything Harry could ever remember. The words were sharp, bitten off, as if he was snapping them out of the air. "The right. What right is this? The right of fornication? An accident of genetics? And what else does this 'right' entitle you to? The ability to walk away again?" The anger was taking over and he forced it down, trying to stay calm, trying to be rational. "Think carefully, Harry. Think very, very carefully before you go in there. These aren't dolls you can play with then put away when you get bored. This is a child. This is a man. These are living, breathing human beings."

"I know that, don't you think I know that? Yes I was an arse. A very large horses arse. You want me to crawl, I'll crawl." The words were there but the emotions were wrong, too wrong. Anger, indignation. They all felt it.

Ron reached out and wrapped a hand around his friends arm, trying to pull him away. Something was wrong, badly wrong, this didn't feel right. Not at all.

Again, Harry shook the restraint off. "Are you siding with him too, Ron?" he looked around the group, wild-eyed, seeing betrayal in every face. "How can you side with him? Look at him, he's keeping me away from the people I love!"

"You don't love them. What you're feeling now isn't love. Don't attribute a word like that to assuage your conscience." Impossibly, Remus' voice dropped another ten degrees. "You don't feel anything but **guilt.** Nothing but that same demented sense of duty. You're not doing it for them, you're doing it because everyone expects you to. And if that's all there is to you then they're better off if you just leave."

"Why the hell should _I_ leave?" Harry's face was twisted, ugly. "They're _my_ family, not yours!"

And all attempts at control flew right out the window.

"Your family." The tones were ice. He'd learned from Severus. "Do you have ownership papers? Perhaps a little leash?" the sheer ego of the other man infuriated him. "Evidently their feelings on it don't matter. The world stops for you." he had centre of attention, uncaring, too lost to even notice the next words out of his mouth. "It never crossed your mind that someone could possibly get over him and find a life of their own. No, they _belong_ to you. Waiting at home for the next time you feel the urge to throw him down and satisfy yourself."

With an inarticulate scream Harry bolted forwards, and only Neville's arms around his waist stopped him physically attacking the werewolf. No words left, no arguments, just a desire to hurt him, to stop those words, make him shut up make him SHUT the FUCK UP.

The others stood silent. None of them willing to take sides, it seemed as if both men had completely lost their minds. Horrified fascination held them in place, minor players, just an audience with no clue as to how it would all end.

"Harry Potter!" the astonished tones belonged to Professor McGonagall, on her way along the corridor and astonished by the vicious display. She looked around the little group with astonishment. "What on **earth**…" Dumbledore gently clasped her hand and bade her to be quiet.

"Mister Potter here was just proclaiming his ownership of Severus and _ Severus_' daughter." Remus ground it in, too damn mad now to care.

"She's my daughter," Harry's struggles were weaker, tears starting to drip down his face. "She's mine, she's mine, I love her, she's my daughter, not yours, not yours!"

But where the others saw the pleading, not-quite believing tones of a man fighting for sanity, Remus only heard manipulation, domination, the urge to control what Harry so arrogantly assumed were his possessions. The pensieve had been a mistake. He was too damn empathic. He needed time to digest what he'd seen, to work it out, to see for himself. He never had that time.

"For how long, Harry? How long before she becomes too inconvenient?" he was pushing the line now, close to tipping over. "How long before it just becomes easier to put her away in a little cupboard under the stairs?"

"Remus! The fu-"

"Lupin!

"My goodness!"

"You fucking PRICK!" Ron lunged forward and Neville let loose his grip on Harry to stop the redhead from physically attacking the other man. Unfortunately that mean that he could no longer stop Harry from doing it and the Auror threw himself across the short distance and at the werewolf.

There was no real co-ordination to his attack, more a helpless ineffectual fury and not a single punch was exchanged before the others got between them again. To tell the truth, more than one was tempted to just let them at it. What Remus had said was unforgivable. Completely, utterly unforgivable.

Dumbledore, as always, took charge, finally broken free of his shocked stupor. "Miss Granger, Mister Longbottom, please, take Harry out of here. And Sirius, please get Professor Lupin away from here as well." The last thing they needed at a time like this was a free for all brawl in the halls of the school. "Take them away – far away – from each other and keep them there until they're capable of talking like rational adults." From bad to good, to outright worse, he reflected, pulling off his glasses and rubbing wearily at his eyes as the others were dragged away. Oh goodness gracious this was a twisted ball indeed, and he could see no way around it.

McGonagall was beside him, looking despondently after the two groups. "Oh Albus, this is a mess. However are we going to fix it?"

ahh dear sweet Minerva. He could always trust her to keep her head in a crisis. "Minerva." He slipped an arm around hers and patted her hand reassuringly. "There's nothing much we _can_ do. They're all adults, not children any more and they will have to find the answers for themselves." True, it wouldn't have been the first time he had overstepped the supposed "once left the schools no longer my concern" mandate that so many headmasters seem to feel was the case, but in this situation he was honestly at a loss as to what to do.

He cast a look towards the infirmary door, then away. No. Poppy wouldn't welcome the intrusion. Nor Severus, most likely. Besides, it seemed that enough people were interfering as it was. Perhaps the best thing to do was to simply set aside and let them work it out for themselves.

* * *

Sirius hauled the werewolf along the corridor to the nearest classroom, shoving him inside and kicking the door shut before letting loose. "What the HELL do you think you're doing, Remus?"

"What it looks like, Sirius," Lupin spat back. He was mad, madder than the animagus had ever seen him before, in all their years of friendship. "I'm stopping _Potter_ from making the biggest damn mistake in his life." He turned his back, slamming his hands down on the sill of a nearby window. He'd lost control. Completely and utterly lost control. He'd shattered what he'd set out to do, he'd blown things out, the words out of his mouth had been the wrong ones and worst of all he was still too damn mad to care.

The tension between them was high, but not blind. They'd known each other too damn long for that. And Sirius knew there were always, _always_ reasons for whatever Remus did. Objective to a fault, always considering all points of the argument before speaking, he always had a reason. Except this time he couldn't see it. A nasty feeling started in his stomach. Was this purely and solely about Snape? This attack on Harry nothing but ugly, vicious jealousy? He didn't want to face it, it didn't feel right with the Remus Lupin he'd known for so long, but he couldn't see another possibility.

"And of course it has nothing to do with the fact that you and Snape are bed-hopping. What is this? Are you protecting your territory? Scaring off the opposition? It's like it's coming down to some big apocalyptic battle between you and Harry to see who gets to screw Snape!" He grabbed the other man's shoulder and turned him roughly around. "Not only does the thought of you two fawning for that man's affections 'gross me out' to use the muggle term, _it's not your choice to make._"

"I know that!" Remus shoved his hand aside. "It's not my choice, it's not Harry's choice, it's no-one's choice but Severus'." He wrenched a hand across his face and stared at the floor. "It's his choice…" he repeated softly. "And whatever he chooses….I'll go with that. I can't do otherwise. I can't….." He closed his eyes briefly. "But when I look at Harry, I see something in his eyes….This isn't a game, Padfoot! These aren't toys you can play with and throw away! This isn't a teenaged boyfriend thing, this isn't a casual fuck, Severus isn't like that. He doesn't leap willy nilly into bed on a random attraction, he _loves,_ he takes so long to trust and when he does, he falls, completely and totally, and if Harry isn't serious with what he wants, and if he turns and walks away again...god…this isn't a game…" His voice trailed off, whisper soft, words failing him.

"You think he's playing games?" Sirius felt a smile touch his lips. It was that simple. "He's not – he wouldn't do that! Come on Moony, this is _Harry!_ You know what he's like - "

"Yes." Colourless tones. "This is Harry. This is a man I taught for one year when he was thirteen. I _don't_ know him, Padfoot – not really. Harry isn't his father. This isn't James, and you have to **stop** thinking of him as if he was James' replacement. James is **dead** and Harry is just a confused man I don't even think knows what he wants in life. And I don't think Harry is doing this out of love. I think it's guilt, it's duty, it's because it's what's expected of him, and worse, I don't think _he_ even realises that."

"I don't think Harry is James." Sirius voice suddenly went cold, humour fleeing from his eyes. "I think he's Harry Potter, my godson. And you know what else I think? Everyone seems so damn intent on protecting poor professor Snape you tell me this Remus – why the _hell_ didn't he tell Harry? You answer me that. If he was so heartbroken and alone why the _fuck_ didn't he even tell the father of his child? Why did he leave it for some stupid accidental discovery? All this talk of protecting and loving his daughter – you tell me why the HELL that involved denying her half of her goddamn family? You tell me that, Remus, because I don't fucking see the logic in it! Especially after that Death Eater attack – What if he had died, Remus?"

The other man couldn't meet his eyes, turning away and he followed him, not letting up for a second. "What if he was dead. Who's going to take care of this daughter he loves so much? You? I know you love him, Moony, I know you love them both, I'm not denying you that but a child needs her _parents._ She needs flesh and blood, to know where she came from. And if Snape knew enough to be screwing Harry, he'd better bloody well have known enough that denying him family was the cruellest thing he could ever have done."

"What would you do, Sirius? You tell me!" Remus grabbed the other man by the collar, shoving them both against the wall. "You tell me what you would do if the last memory you have of the father of your child is a damn near rape and laughter in your face." His voice was low, a snarl, words whipping out. "You tell me what you would do if your lover walked out on you, if every owl you sent was returned, unopened, if you never got a word, never a clue, if you never ever fucking got one single reply from someone who said they'd love you forever. You want some answers, well you're not the only fucking one, Sirius. Get off your goddamn high horse and wake up."

Sirius shoved back, knocking the other man off him. "Don't you tell me that. You're falling into the trap of pitying the self-proclaimed injured party. You weren't there. You have **nothing** to go on save what that prat told you, and that is _no cause to try and destroy Harry!_ You of all people _know_ how things get blown out of proportion. You _know_ how stories get embellished, how they get turned to whatever the teller wants to say. Merlin's balls Remus, remember that little whore Kochanski in sixth year and how you turning her down for sex became attempted rape that ended up in front of the bloody ministry? People **lie**. You _know_ that! And most of all you stupid bastard, you know _better_ than that!"

"PENSIEVES DON'T LIE!" The words shattered the air between them.

And for that, Sirius had no answer.

"Pensieves don't lie, Sirius. They can't. Those memories are real. And yes, Severus made mistakes. Harry made mistakes. But at least I'm not so _blinded_ with favouritism that I can't see that both sides are to blame. But laying blame never fixed anything, Padfoot. You know that. All blame does is **hurt.** Past actions and emotions shape the present but if you let them start to rule the now…all you're going to do is destroy yourself. And that's exactly what Harry's doing."

"How? By loving his daughter? By wanting to be there for her? Remus, you've got no reason to your logic!"

"Did you love Harry?" Lupin asked suddenly. "Not as a baby, we all loved him," a faint smile touched his lips at the memory. "I think he was everyone's baby boy, not just Lily and James'. Even Albus and Minerva found reasons to pop by… but when you escaped – from Azkaban, when you saw him there, on Privet drive for the first time in over ten years did you love him? Can you honestly say you loved him?"

"It was curiosity, at first." Sirius admitted. He could have lied but what would be the use? They could always see through each other. "I just had to see him…to make sure he was all right, to see Lil' and Jamie's boy all grown up. And that bloody rat Pettigrew, I had to protect Harry from him. Like I couldn't do for James and Lil…" his voice trailed off as realisation set in. "I didn't love him. Not at first. I just had to protect him, because I couldn't protect his parents. I owed them that…" he could see what the other man was driving at now, but he still didn't agree. "I grew to love him as Harry because I got to know him as Harry, and I never would have gotten that chance with someone there telling me I didn't have the RIGHT to know him! You have to give him that chance, Remus!"

"I'm not SAYING he doesn't have the right to know her!" He was losing his temper again now, sheer frustration at the other mans inability to understand his reasoning. "I'm saying he doesn't know enough to throw himself pledging undying love into the relationship. He doesn't feel love, all he feels now is a _shitload _of guilt and duty and that's _not what they need._"

Sirius didn't back down. "He's pushed too far, Moony. You shouldn't be doing this - not now. He needs to get his feet back under him before you start tearing him to pieces."

"And if he gets his feet back on a foundation of lies? Do you honestly think that would be better for him?" Remus sagged against the window, looking suddenly tired and aged beyond his years. "I know Padfoot, I know, and I curse myself a thousand times over for it, this shouldn't have to be. It shouldn't have happened. But it did, and we're both in the middle of it."

"Look, I know you Moony. We've been friends a long time." Sirius sagged down to sit on the sill beside the other man, hands hanging loosely between his knees. "And I know, that at the worst time of my life, you were the only one that believed in me. But I won't support you in this. I can't. Harry and Snape, you and Snape whatever wherever, tell the truth that's something I really don't want to know about, but this thing with Araminta, what you're doing to Harry…" his hands made a helpless gesture. "I know your reasons, and I know why you're doing this…but I can't support you in it. I can't. It's wrong. Not this way Moony, there has to be another way to do it. "

"If you have any ideas Padfoot, please, tell me, I can't see them." Remus pleaded softly. " And I'm not asking you to support me. I want you to support Harry. He's going to need it, so much. Protecting Harry isn't as much an incentive as Severus and Araminta," he admitted flatly. "But it's still a large part. It has to be done. It's not just Severus and Araminta's lives that will be ruined if he's just doing it out of guilt." He let out a sigh that wilted his entire body. "Even if Severus and I weren't lovers, I'd probably still say the same damn thing."

Sirius studied him for a long moment. "You're a bastard." He said finally. "A complete and utter bastard. But at least you're an honest one." He gripped the other man's shoulder, a firm touch that let him know he hadn't lost one of his few, precious friends. "We're in this up to our eyeballs again, aren't we?"

"And a half." The tension in the room slowly eased. "Merlin, it's times like this I wish I smoked."

They'd agreed to disagree. It wasn't the first time, and it wouldn't be the last. They both knew that their friendship relied on them not being carbon copies of each other, that it was their differences that forged the strength of it.

But there was one last thing that was bothering Sirius – and had been since before the confrontation in the infirmary.

"You knew, didn't you? About Harry." There was a look he'd never seen before in his friends eyes. "You knew. And you didn't tell me. Remus, _why_ - "

Lupin held up a placating hand, fingers of the other kneading briefly at the bridge of his nose. "Knew, no. Suspected, yes. Do you remember that…" a smile quirked his lips for a second, then disappeared. "_Infamous_ Quidditch match? Slytherin against….Hufflepuff I think it was."

Sirius groaned at the memory. "Oh merlin, not that one where Hagrid got that mad idea about muggle hot dogs and made a pile of them out of stoat…" the sight of nearly the entire school body throwing up over the edge of the stands was not one easily forgotten. Or the taste – he'd eaten four of them himself, slathered with mustard before he'd realised what they were.

"That one." Remus confirmed. "Which is why I think no one else noticed…."

With Remus' help, Severus settled himself into a bench on the teacher's stand. Ahh, spring. Season of hay fever, overly frisky students, obscene amounts of stupidity, and, of course, Quidditch.

The other teachers had been leery of allowing him into the stands, but Severus had been firm. Slytherin was playing, and he had no intention of letting his children down. In the end, they had compromised. Flitwick had overseen levitating the pregnant professor up to the teacher's stand to avoid him having to traverse the stairs, and the staff had settled themselves in a protective huddle around him, charms cast to shield them from any stray bludgers or players.

It was all rather amusing, come to think of it.

Resting a hand on his belly, Snape successfully fended off the pre-match offer of a dubious looking hot-dog from Hagrid. Not even pregnancy-induced changes in taste could make him eat any meat product made by the half-giant. Likewise, Remus showed little faith in the groundskeeper's culinary skills.

"I'll have his," Sirius was already juggling four of the damned things in his hands.

_And_ he was sitting behind them.

Snape grimaced. He hoped that years as a dog sniffing around garbage cans had gifted the animagus with a cast-iron stomach. He had no desire to end up with a mouthful of vomit in the back of his head.

The sound around them was deafening as the players swooped out onto the field. Hooch released the bludgers and snitch before tossing the quaffle high into the air – and the game was on!

This year, Hufflepuff had actually managed to put together a fairly decent team. Unlike previous years, a complete and total slaughter wasn't expected, but a tight, exciting match, and the players didn't let them down.

As soon as the quaffle was in the air, Anthony McPartlin of Hufflepuff had possession. Ploughing straight through Slytherin lines, he barely shot a glance over his shoulder at the players hot on his heels. Aiming straight for the three golden hoops marking the Hufflepuff goals he weaved past fellow team member Declan Donnelly before driving his broom in a suicide plunge towards the ground.

Just when it seemed he was about to crash, he shifted bringing himself out of the dive, the soles of his boots kissing grass an instant before he wrenched his broom straight up, an arrow flight right up the pole supporting the middle hoop, Slytherin in pursuit.

But he didn't have the quaffle.

Donnelly did.

Looping almost lazily around the poles in a triple figure eight, the blonde nonchalantly tossed the quaffle through the middle hoop.

"HUFFLEPUFF SCORES!" The house danced about on the stands as the pair slapped a happy five to each other before diving back into the fray.

Slytherin in possession, and Strabo wasn't about to give in easily. A side attack from a Hufflepuff on one side and a speeding bludger on the other hemmed him in, so in true Slytherin style he let his enemies take care of each other, swinging around until he was hanging upside down from his broom, the bludger swooping harmlessly over his feet to pelt the Hufflepuff in the face. An underhand sling to fifth year Britton was intercepted by McPartlin, who flew cheekily under the upside-down Slytherin captain, shooting him a cheerful two-fingered salute before copping the bristle end of a broom in the ear as Strabo righted himself.

The Quaffle shot off to the side and McBaron of Slytherin swooped in to claim it, executing a loop-de-loop around a bludger and the Hufflepuff Keeper before a straight handed shoot scored a goal for his house.

Then the seekers saw the snitch.

Black and yellow, black and green, the tails of their robes intermingled as they rode closely in tandem. Up, down, a tight right hand turn, staying tight as if glued together the two boys chased the elusive flash of gold. Neither attempted to shove the other off their broom, both of them too focused on the snitch. For Hufflepuff, it meant the game, and for the first time in years a chance at the cup. For Slytherin, it was pure pride. In an eerie parallel of ten years ago, the snitch slammed towards the ground, players in hot pursuit. Hufflepuff managed to pull up in time out of the suicide plunge.

Slytherin didn't.

A howl rose up from the green and black stands as their seeker slammed into the ground with an audible crunch, neither broom nor boy stirring from the crumpled heap. Pomfrey ran onto the ground to retrieve the fallen player, casting a quick levitation spell and holding off any medical treatment until they were both safely off the field.

The Hufflepuff seeker seemed unaware of the loss of his shadow, focused on the gleaming winged ball a bare arms length from his face. Bracing his hands on the handle of his broom, he pushed himself up, then onto his feet.

It was a move that was quickly becoming known as the Potter Manoeuvre (Or Potter's Insanity, depending on whom you spoke to) – standing on ones broom as if it were a muggle surfboard, hands outstretched, balanced precariously as you reached for the snitch.

Harry Potter the Hufflepuff seeker was not, wobbling madly on his perch, hands groping clumsily until finally his feet slipped, the broom shot forwards and he landed square on his testicles across the handle.

The entire male population of the school winced as one unit as the student toppled sideways with a thin shriek of pain. Not even the teachers were immune, but something else pulled at Remus' attention.

He hadn't seen the boy fall. Hadn't seen him miss the snitch. Barely heard the crowd's mass whimper. Hadn't seen anything really, beyond when the boy had first pushed himself precariously to his feet, Quidditch gauntlets flashing in the sun as he rode the broom. He'd turned to make an off-hand comment to the man beside him and had frozen.

Severus stared at the boy. At the way the wind from the speed of his broom whipped the hair back from his face, the set of the mouth, the hand outstretched and look had crossed his face, pained, undefinable. He had gone white, whiter than Remus even thought possible, eyes clenching shut and face wrenching away as if from a sight that was terrible, too terrible, too heartbreaking to bear.

"Severus?"

Behind them, a queer look crossed Sirius' face and he lurched forward, dropping the remains of his barely-eaten fifth hot-dog and clutching his stomach.

"Severus?" Real concern coloured his tone now. Nothing else seemed real around them, the growing noises from the crowd relegated to background noise from another world. "What is it? Is it the baby?" he reached out to lay a palm on the other man's belly and was astonished by the grip with which Snape clutched at his arm.

"No…Please, get me out of here…" it was barely whispered, eyes clenched tight and hand gripping at the Werewolf's forearm fierce enough to snap bone. "Please, Remus…not here…"

He thought he understood. Emotions, pregnancy-driven moodswings. Intensely private, Severus hated for anyone to see him lose control.

No one seemed to notice as they made their way through the crowded stand, the people around them turning various interesting colours and lurching to lean over the sides to the accompaniment of assorted nauseating sounds. The few students and staff that hadn't tried the hot dogs were in an uproar, disgusted shouts filling the air at the co-workers and students that didn't make it to the edge of the stands in time.

Not that he really saw them. Or heard them. His entire focus was on the man clinging almost desperately to him, white faced and shaking with the effort of holding burning emotions back. In the confusion no one noticed them leaving, making their way slowly down the stairs, and he wrapped an arm around the other wizard, holding him close, murmuring soft, nonsensical words soothingly. "It's ok Severus, it's ok, shh, we're nearly away from them, nearly safe…" he wasn't even aware of what he was saying, the words spilling from his lips.

Snape clung to the words like a lifeline, feet feeling blindly for a path, measured breaths dragging in and out at the effort of holding back. Not here, not here, not in front of the others, not here, not here…. It became his mantra, filling his world, screaming at the back of his throat as he lost the battle and the tears began. Stupid, so stupid! He railed at himself. So sure, so always in control of himself, a stupid, _stupid_ Quidditch match and a chance resemblance, a reminder had sent him stumbling back when he'd sworn to himself it didn't matter any more.

He was sobbing now, he knew. And it humiliated him beyond belief. He was barely aware of the man next to him, the arms around him, when they made their stumbling way back to the safety of his rooms.

It shouldn't matter, it shouldn't HURT!

But it did. Oh it did, again and again, as if he'd just seen the other man walk out, his last words like a brand on his soul. His daughter moved in his belly, reacting to his pain and the motion was like fire. His daughter. Harry's daughter. Their daughter, the daughter that wasn't meant to be, that none of this was meant to be and for a brief, blinding instant he _hated_ her. Hated her for what she was, what she reminded him of, the constant reminder spawning inside him. Punishment for his stupidity.

And it horrified him.

He fell to his knees, uncaring, barely aware of the hands on him, the frantic arms wrapping around him, the voice begging in his ear, lips pressing against his face, his hair, rocking him almost desperately. He'd never cried. Hadn't allowed himself to mourn a love gone wrong. Pining and weeping were for fools and idiots, and he had been both, but life went on. There was no time for wailing, no time for thinking of what might have been and he had locked it away, so far away, never dealt with it and now it was breaking loose, lashing at him. Magnified by the pregnancy, his emotions ran riot and he was helpless against them.

Never allowing himself to cry, never having time to deal with what he had scorned as the useless emotions, he was completely unprepared for the onslaught. It was breaking him down, tearing him apart, feelings so huge he couldn't contain them, growing and growing until he wished he would simply die of it, die and be free of them.

"Severus…speak to me! Please!" Remus was beyond worried. He'd seen Snape pissed, disturbingly happy, upset, in tears, but nothing matched this shattering torment. Tears stood out on his own cheeks in sympathy, barely noticed, barely cared for as he cradled the sobbing wizard in his arms, rocking him back and forth. He'd never felt so helpless in his life. He clung to the other man, tried to be his rock, tried to soothe him, holding him in his arms, rubbing his back, gentle kisses to the twisted face – anything!

What was the cause of this? His mind raced for answers, for reasons, for ways to stop it – if this misery were a physical thing he would have torn it away with his bare hands. Something to fight, some reason, give him something he could touch, could fight!

And a reason came to him. One that made his face pale. A Quidditch match. A Potter manoeuvre. An unnamed, unknown father.

Remus suspected the truth, but he wouldn't ask. Nor would he tell - what good would it do? No one knew where he was anyway, whereas Severus was right here in front of him.

But how did you heal a pain like this? How could you?

In the end, he did all he could. Be there for him, whispering soft, loving words, battling the sorrow the best way he could, letting the other man cry himself out, holding him as they rode it out together.

In between the tears the words stuttered out, brief words, useless words, words that made Remus' gut clench. Words damning himself for his own stupidity, cursing himself for being so weak – weak! To go through something like this, to know feelings like this took strength, far greater strength than he knew.

And then the apologies. The apologies, endless apologies for wasting his time, for being so weak, again and again, twisting deeper and further in his stomach. This wasn't the Severus he knew, proud and unafraid, this was some other creature, struggling like a newborn foal in a wave of long repressed regrets and fears, self-loathing leading the seemingly never-ending charge.

The tears died slowly, taking an eon to abate, leaving Snape staring across the room. "How can you stand me, Remus?" he whispered, staring blank eyed and hollow at his reflection in the mirror. "How can you stand what I am?"

Remus resumed his rocking. "You're a man who risked his life again and again to protect the people that scorned him, and asked nothing in return but the right to be himself. You're bad tempered, horribly biased towards your children in your house, and one of the bravest and most honest people I know. You're a man I've come respect, and admire…" and the last was soft, almost whispered. "And a man I've come to love very, very much."

Silence. Nothing was said for a quiet while, then Severus shifted against him, slowly, almost ponderously turning to look into his face. Their eyes were bare inches apart, studying each other.

The kiss was soft and slow, learning and gentle. Remus cupped the back of the other man's neck in his palm, feeling soft, warm skin, whisps of black hair drifting across the back of his hand. It wasn't greasy at all.

Severus' hands drifted down from his shoulders to rest at his waist, stroking the sides of his robe, tiny clenching and releasing of the material there. Remus was warm, and loving, gentle, but strong, all the things he'd thought he would be.

They separated slowly and reluctantly and he rested his forehead against the other man's, moving his head back and forth a little to rub noses. Remus let his eyes slip closed, content to just hold and be held, sharing the other man's breath, the feel of him. Severus' hands still at his waist, playing with his robes, slow circles and abstract patterns.

"We can't…we can't have sex…" Snape whispered into his mouth, fingers making odd, worried patterns in the other mans robe. "Poppy says it's not safe."

For an instant Remus felt a sudden fury well up inside him. Something like that wasn't in Severus' nature, it was taught to him. He wanted to go out and hurt everyone who had taught the other man that love meant sex, that comfort was paid for with passion, no foundation, no courting, just raw, soulless fucking. Then it faded, an incredible sadness taking its place.

His eyes drifted open. Tear-streaked and tired, Snape had never looked more beautiful to him. Reaching out, he stroked a finger over the other man's lips, thrilling at the permission to do even that. "I don't want sex, Severus," he said softly. Instant gratification, jumping into bed and screwing like ferrets after first, stumbling confessions of love, that wasn't what he wanted. It was cheap, it was crude, and somehow demeaning to what he felt. "I want you."

Words failed the usually articulate potions master. It was all he could do to sit there, a vague, disbelieving look on his face. Stroking a hand down the pale features, Remus drew him in again, feather light kisses across that proud nose, those tear stained cheeks. His mind cast up an odd skerrick of song – dry your tears with love – and he chuckled a little at it, arms weaving under the other man's robes to gently embrace the body beneath them, feeling hands creep around him in return, hesitantly, like frightened mice. Snape rested his head against the werewolf's collarbone, breathing in the scent of him, eyes slipping closed as peace finally drifted across the scarred battlefield of his soul.

And then someone knocked on the door.

"Shit." He laughed outright at the other man's curse, the sound muffled and slowly pulled away. Remus released him, slowly, reluctantly and cupped a hand against his cheek. "I'll go see who it is," he whispered, brushing his lips against Snape's forehead as he climbed off the bed. "I'll be right back, I promise." Closing the door behind him, he slipped into the main chamber and answered the now-pounding summons.

It was Sirius.

"Where's Snape?" the animagus demanded without preamble, striding across the room to stick his head inside the bathroom and peer about in search for the absent Wizard. "He all right? He didn't eat any of those hot dog things Hagrid was handing out, did he?" Raising an eyebrow in sheer bewilderment, Remus shook his head. "Good. I didn't think he had, but Pomfrey sent me down here to make sure. Stoat! He made the bloody things out of _stoat!_ The game had to be cancelled since half the school threw up on the players, Merlin knows when there'll be a rematch. Sinistra chucked up on Trelawney – ha! The old bat didn't see **that** coming – Dumbledore's still fishing chunks from his beard, there's a line to the infirmary three miles long from panicked students convinced they're dying of food poisoning – mind you there are a few legitimate cases…" he stopped to take a breath and blinked at the werewolf. "What happened to you? You look like I just walked in on you….oh no…..oh _Moony_ you _ haven't_…"

Remus poker-faced him.

"Oh sod, you have, haven't you?" Sirius sprawled down on the nearest couch. Truth be told, he wasn't that surprised. The sheer amount of time he spent around his old friend had rapidly become the sheer amount of time he'd spent with both Remus _and_ Snape, and despite the blind spot the rest of the staff seemed to have regarding the pair, he'd seen it coming. In fact he was surprised it had taken this long.

The werewolf followed, carefully seating himself next to the animagus. "You're taking this…different to what I expected," he ventured. "Given the...ah...history you and Severus had."

"You mean the time I turned his hair pink or the time he turned me into a gerbil? Remus, I'm not really that surprised. Even a blind man could see what was going on between you two. Ask me a year ago and I would have had you committed. Ask me _two_ years ago and I would have kicked your arse around the Quidditch pitch until your brains came back. But now…" he sighed. Harry wasn't the only one who'd grown up.

"It's your life, Moony. Your heart. I'm glad you've got someone, you weren't meant for being alone. And as for it being Snape…well, I've gotten used to him. Don't mistake me – he's a NEWT-level prick. He was a prick when we were in school, he's a prick now, and he'll be a prick far into the future. But I've kind of gotten used to the sour-faced old bastard. He's like a pet dog. You know the kind, evil-tempered, foul-smelling, whizzes on the chair legs…" He shrugged for effect. "….but you're used to him. Same with Snape."

"I'm pleased you think so highly of me." The dry tone turned both their heads. Severus had emerged from his bedroom. He'd washed his face, but his eyes were still red, voice raw from tears. Master of his rooms, lord of spite, and so worn and desolate-looking that Sirius felt an odd sympathy. He didn't let it show. Snape wouldn't thank him for gushing words of concern. "Speaking of dogs, how is dear Fluffy?"

Remus turned a peculiar colour and had a sudden coughing fit. Sirius on the other hand, wasn't taking the bait. "Fluffy? Please, Flitwick's poodle isn't my type at all," he responded evenly. "Far too poofy. There was this Lahsa Apso on the other hand…."

An odd look crossed Snape's face, and for an instant, he wasn't sure whether or not to take the animagus seriously.

But he was too tired to start an argument, soul-weary and wanted nothing more than the glorious oblivion of sleep. Uncaring of the other two, he turned to go back to his private rooms and stumbled a little. To his astonishment, there were two pairs of hands there to aid him, not just one, two bodies supporting him, two voices talking idly to him as their owners helped him into a nightshirt and to his bed.

Seated on the side, he peered up at the other two men, looking little more to Sirius than an overtired child desperately in need of a nap. "Go to sleep, Snapey-boy," he ruffled the other man's hair mischievously, unable to stop the laugh at the pitiful version of a baleful glare shot his way.

"Sod off, Black." The animagus _knew_ how much he'd loathed that nickname as a child. He arched gingerly over onto his side, hating that brief moment between controlled movement and sheer force of gravity before he met the mattress. He felt groggy, out of focus, and to tell the truth his snipe at Black had been the last vague fumbling of a mind descending into fog. His bed was soft, welcoming….and so very, very lonely. Slowly he shifted until his back was to the other two, a stubborn insistence on keeping whatever remained of his pride intact, preventing them from seeing his face. Curled up on his side, he pressed his head deep into the pillow, his hand drifting to its habitual rest on his swollen belly to comfort himself.

The voices behind him rose a little, then faded. He felt a brush of air against the back of his neck as the sheets were lifted, then a warm body was slipping underneath them, pressing up against his back, gentle arms wrapping around him.

He raised his head groggily, eyes struggling to stay open. "Remus..?"

"shhh…" a hand stroked gently down his chest, resting on his stomach and entwining with his fingers. "Sleep, Severus. I promise I won't leave you alone…"

He relaxed into the warmth of the embrace, feeling safe for the first time in what seemed forever. He squeezed the fingers entangled with his once, feeling an answering motion and drifted to sleep with the pattern of soft breath against his cheek, the steady heartbeat at his back.

"I didn't know, not for sure." Remus said slowly. "And then when 'Minta was born, I nearly knew, but not for sure, I couldn't for sure. Not until Hagrid told me." His eyes closed, words accelerating, tumbling from his mouth. "And in the infirmary…Severus had a house elf bring me his pensieve. I saw….I saw everything. He didn't want to say it, didn't want to taint it with emotions or words so he showed me the memories and I know everything, Sirius. I know how it happened and what happened and I know more than Severus thinks because what he and Harry had…" his voice broke. "There's no place for me in that! No place at all…what they had Sirius, god, it was fire and passion and something like that doesn't just die!" He buried his face in his hands as his fears finally ripped free. "God Sirius, oh god, he's going to go back to Harry, I know it. He's going to go back to him….and there's no place for me…All I can do is make it right, all I can do is try and make it for the right reasons, make it real again…..oh god Sirius, what am I going to do without him?"

Reaching out, Sirius rested a helpless hand on the other man's shoulder. Then pulled him into his arms. Yes, Snape was _still_ a prick. But Remus was his best friend.

Guilt prickled at him. And what about Harry? Merlin's beard, arse and balls, this was one hell of a mess. He honestly couldn't see a resolution, either way someone he loved was going to hurt. And badly. All he could do was be there for them, his friend and godson, no matter which way the dice rolled. One problem at a time, just take it one problem at a time, and maybe that way he could keep his sanity intact, without feeling like he was betraying one half of his life for the other.

"If he's yours, you can't lose him, Moony." He whispered, slowly rocking the man in his arms. "And if you can – he never was." Poor words of comfort, but the only ones he could really offer.

He just wished he knew it would be all right. 


	19. Chapter 18

Severus Snape stared vacantly across the room, eyes focused on nowhere in particular, tightening a little at the words exchanged on the other side of the door.

And so it begins…

The sleeping toddler snuggled into the protective curl of his body stirred a little, delicately painted features twitching. He reached out with the instinct of a father to lay his hand against her cheek, to soothe her, the motion petering out and fading at the sight of those damn bandages again.

Weak, beaten, he lay in here useless while voices raged outside, intrusive, meddlesome, appointing themselves kings in a human game of chess where everyone was a pawn and rights were forfeit.

Again and again his life seemed to travel back to this point. Never a king, never a queen, Never a minor piece, but somehow never a major one either, hovering somewhere between states, self-governed to an extent, but always following orders, always dancing to the strings of some master puppeteer. He was used to it. It was a part he had played well during the war, dancing for two masters like a sideshow monkey.

But the war was over

And Araminta was _not_ a pawn.

His fingers tightened. Not by any stretch of the imagination could it be called a fist. The splints and bandages on his bruised and broken hand stilted the movement, reduced it to a mere flexing twitch.

But in his mind, it was a fist, slowly curling and unclenching in time to his thoughts.

The only thing that went through the school faster than one of Hagrid's stoat hot dogs was rumour. And this revelation of fatherhood would no doubt break all laws of muggle physics ripping through the ears and mouths of staff and students alike.

How eager everyone would be to hear it! The teacher and student. The Slytherin and Gryffindor. The hero and the Death Eater. On so many levels it would no doubt prove a veritable feast for eager lips and bitter souls to spread about.

The argument, the words that dimmed throughout the room despite mild silencing charms and Poppy's furious bustling - this was just the beginning.

And after the truth had settled into the light, then, then there would be the side taking. Who should be with whom and when and where – everyone would have their own opinions on how his life should lead, whom he should be forced to be with, and not one of them would give a damn about what he wanted, as if he were some trophy to be awarded to the most popular man.

And in the end, he was inconsequential.

As always.

It would turn to his daughter, not the greasy bastard of Slytherin house. The green-eyed dark-haired cherub and darling of the school.

He was a father. Perhaps, even, a good one. But who would care? Who would see beyond the mental images carefully nurtured against him. It wouldn't matter what he'd done for the side of light, what he had become. Ideas and memories fresh laid would be swept away by long-held perceptions and 'common knowledge'.

He was a Slytherin. He would always be a Slytherin. A hateful, venomous man, the worst kind, a Death eater who had turned against even his own kind.

But he was also a man.

And a father.

And like any good father, he would do whatever it took to protect his daughter.

Trembling fingers gently ran down a soft cheek as the toddler cried out a little in her sleep, waking her from her nightmare, bruised arms enfolding her in a tender embrace as she clung to him when she awoke, chasing away the fears, a once-strong body as always her shelter against the dark.

"Shh…shhh…papa's here, precious, papa's here…." He comforted her as she sobbed incoherently, words and tears jumbled together in the aftermath. Nightmares. A pain he wished he could spare her. One he knew he never could. Draught of living death was too powerful for one so young, and simply dismissing the dreams, the fears unleashed would do more good than harm, he knew that from experience. All he could do was be there for her. Hold her, comfort her, until they lost their power, until her sub-conscious mind came to terms with what had happened to her.

And what nice, cold, clinical little phrasing it was.

He had faced many, many things in his life, but nothing would ever terrify him the same way as a scream of fear from his own child. The sound she had made when they had ripped her from his arms. It was a sound that would haunt his own nightmares, time and time again.

Araminta crawled up his body, green eyes peering at him. "bad men gone?" her voice was small, trembling a little, needing affirmation from the one man whose words she always took as gospel, who never ever lied to her.

Snape stroked a lock of hair away from her face. "Yes. The bad men are gone." As horrific as it sounded, he wished his daughter had seen the battle, had seen the men who had taken her beaten, seen the fuel of nightmares vanquished.

And oh, he wished he had been the one to do it.

Araminta smiled, snuggling down into his chest. "Papa made them go away…" the innocent, double-meaning blade of her words choked laughter deep in his chest. Out of the mouth of babes…

"Where's Remuu?" Her head poked up as she realised a member of their little trio was missing, hands reaching for a man who wasn't there.

"Remus is…busy…" he said delicately, wincing as a shout echoed through the room. The words weren't really intelligible, more a blast of sound than anything else. Dammit! He made an abortive move to get to his feet, stopping abruptly not at the furious look Poppy shot him, but at the pain that ripped through his back at the motion.

Araminta frowned up at him. "Not a full moon," she pointed out, face turning into a stubborn pout he knew all too well, with all the demanding power of a two-year old behind it. There would be absolutely no reasoning with her, a fact he knew well as her face screwed up in a moue of extreme displeasure. "Want Remuu!"

He tightened his hug around her before she could degenerate into a full-blown temper tantrum. Normally he would ignore her childish little "I want!" fits, or cast the odd silencing charm if she became too noisy – asserting herself was one thing, the 'terrible twos' were another entirely – but he felt she was due a tantrum or two, given the circumstances.

And though he would never admit it, even under the cruellest tortures, he desperately needed a cuddle.

Araminta huffed and subsided, picking up on his mood. "Want Remuu," she muttered, but it was more plaintive than anything else.

_so do i…_ it was whispered in his mind, only in his mind. This wasn't a casual affair. Wasn't a rebound relationship – it never would have lasted for so long if it had been either. With Remus he had found a stability and honesty that had been so sorely lacking in his life. His body pleaded for a healing sleep his mind could not give it, clouding his thoughts.

But Harry too, had a place, one he couldn't deny. He was Araminta's father, and both Harry and his daughter had the right to know each other. Merlin this was such a mess!

His mind ran rampant, custody battles, the golden boy against the potions bastard, the thought of losing his daughter making his heart clench painfully in his chest. To never see her again, to never hold her, to comfort her, to teach her, all the things he had done, all the things he loved to do, to never love _her_ again….it was a hell he'd faced once before. And the father – perhaps coward – in him lacked the strength to face it again.

He knew his choice, he'd made it already – hell, he'd made it years ago.

But when it came to his daughter, his choice, he knew, was inconsequential. Caught up mindlessly in the grindwheel of accelerating events.

Abruptly he pulled in a deep breath, reigning his mind back in. He was a man, not a child. He wasn't helpless! And there was no cause for any of this!

The pensieve had been his first mistake. He never would have shown it to Remus if he'd known how soon after the event his lover and ex lover would come face to face. Remus wore his emotions easily, he planned, he strategised, true, but harm to family, to his own, was the one button that was too easy to push.

And now the pair were out there butting heads while he lay here pitying himself. He'd never allowed himself regrets and wasn't about to start now.

/ "How long before it just becomes easier to put her away in a little cupboard under the stairs?" /

THAT came through loud and clear, and he shoved himself upright, pain ignored and thrust aside in a regrettably familiar way. He knew Remus would have his reasons for saying what he did, and the bastard in him approved of the delivery of the cutting remark, but the same man who had loved and lost – and above all _knew_ Harry Potter was still inside him and he knew that to say such a thing went beyond any acceptable boundaries.

This had gone far enough.

Everyone was blowing everything possible wildly out of proportion, seeking trouble where there should be none, or simply making their own, it sounded like. And this argument, whatever had caused it, it had to be stamped upon, killed stone dead. This wasn't some obscene muggle soap drama, this was _real life_. Everyone seemed to be becoming oblivious to that little fact, and even he was starting to fall victim to the hysteria permeating the air.

There was no c_ause_ for this! The sheer ridiculousness of the situation made him want to either laugh hysterically or put a wand to his head. It was degenerating into a comedy of errors! As far as he was concerned the matter, while not settled, had at least been eased into some semblance of order. Out of all the parties concerned, the only one deserving a full explanation was Remus himself, and damn him to hell, Severus had fallen into the sleepy lassitude of the infirm before managing to do so.

Enough was enough!

Poppy was standing over him before he'd even finished the thought, reading his body language in an insultingly easy way – she'd seen it before. "No. Don't even think about it Severus, you're nowhere near healed yet." She held her wand at him, hand shaking a little, almost shoving it up his nose.

Thin lips tightened almost cruelly. "Accio wand." The burst of wandless magic ripped through his healing fingers and he couldn't resist the cry of pain at the feeling, dropping the rod uselessly to the floor.

Poppy pounced on the opportunity. "You can't even do that, can you? Severus, please, listen to me," she pleaded. "You nearly _died._" the fact that he still could, remote as it was, was another weapon she would have used if his daughter wasn't there.

But even as she spoke she had the feeling she had already lost the inchoate battle. Snape was not a stupid man. And if he had the chance to heal, to rest, he would take it. In the past he acquiesced to her when he had the chance, but too often during those dark years he hadn't had the choice. And there had been alternates….

Her eyes widened in realisation. "Severus, no…" She knew what he wanted. What potion he was asking for. "I can't give you that. I won't."

It was one they were both horribly intimate with. A stimulant, a quick fix, one that never lasted. The results were unpredictable at best, it could accelerate the healing process, or merely leave the feeling of being healed, which was most dangerous of all. Oh, it would do what he wanted, but Poppy refused to administer it. This wasn't the war. There was time for healing, precious time he'd never had the hundreds of times they'd been forced to resort to it.

"I'll do it my damn self!" clutching his daughter under one arm and shoving at the witch with the other, he clawed at the blankets, ignoring the fire lancing through his body at every motion. "Dammit Pomfrey, I can't approach this from a position of weakness. I can't do this when I'm falling asleep every time I utter a word more than three syllables long!" he was on the verge of passing out even as he said the words, only sheer willpower keeping him going.

"Severus Snape you are NOT leaving this bed! I'll body bind you if I have to!"

It was an empty threat and they both knew it. Merlin, Poppy had seen the man escape a nest of death eaters and drag himself halfway across the world with a bare breath left in his body, there was nothing she could do to hold him.

Snape threw off her arms, eyes narrowed like twin lasers on her. Untold damage was being done, he could feel it, and she was pressing him to play the part of the injured party and let his life get shot to hell

"Get. The. Potion."

"No."

Eyes tightened further. Meddle, meddle, meddle, poking prying fools either leaping to his defence or using his absence to make their statements, all of them abusing his infirmity for their own ends and ideals. And what he _needed_ was for everyone to remove their respective heads from their rectal cavities and _shut_ the _ hell_ up!

He and Harry had talked. And he had made his position, quite, quite clear. They were no longer lovers, but Harry had still fathered his daughter. He belonged in her life. The need for petty retribution still burned inside him, but he recognised it for what it was and refused to let it blind him. He was more than willing to allow Harry into his daughter's life – if that was what he truly wanted, if his intentions were right.

And everyone seemed to be telling Harry the opposite. And that was more damaging than any of the purblind muddleheaded incompetent morons could envisage.

Poppy saw none of his thoughts, but recognised the familiar set in the potions master's eyes. One she had become horribly intimate with during the war, when he had dragged his broken body again and again from a healing bed to go out and harm it again for the cause of the light. And she knew, that no matter how hard she steeled herself against it, he would break her, and she would accede to his request.

"Severus," she pleaded softly. "Don't do this. Think of your daughter. Think of your family. Doing this could set your recovery back _weeks,_ and for what? An hour? This is madness, please…." Even as the words left her mouth, she knew she had lost.

"An hour is all I need," he muttered, reaching for the bundle of clean robes left by a thoughtful house elf, until now disregarded and unneeded. His face twisted into an odd grimace, half smile, half pain. "And as much as it pains me to admit it, I _am_ thinking about my family."

* * *

Harry was laughing.

It had started suddenly, and he couldn't stop, the sound increasing in volume, bouncing off stone as his friends steered him through the halls and back into the kitchen, pushing him into a seat. Loud, hysterical, the kind of laughter you died from and he was dimly aware of how it sounded less like a joyful sound and more like a wail from the grave but he still couldn't stop.

Not too long ago…it felt like a century, he was just an Auror. Just a man. Now he was a father. Instant family like some demented potion, just add water and gently simmer. The simile didn't fail him and he choked on his own laughter, hauling in a gasp of air before bursting off into another fit of giggles. Except someone stole his cauldron.

Cuckolded. That was the word, wasn't it? Except it didn't really belong in this context since Severus wasn't his. As had been pointed out so bluntly. He was exhausted, both physically and emotionally, pushed too damn far and he couldn't stop laughing. But that was good, wasn't it? Wasn't humour supposed to be the universal panacea?

He heard Ron swear softly from somewhere above him. "He's lost it.."

The thought made him laugh even harder, doubled over and almost falling from his seat. Oh he wished he had! He honestly wished for insanity, complete, blithering, idiotic and above all ** oblivious** insanity.

"Harry…Harry…" there were hands on his face, turning it up, forcing him to look into worried brown eyes. He hiccoughed a few times, choking on the laughter, trying not to meet those eyes but they caught him, turning the laughter into a cold, hard knot somewhere in his chest.

"what do I do, 'mione?" he whispered plaintively. "it's all gone wrong, what do i do?"

Hermione could only look at him helplessly. Blindly she reached out behind her, knotting her fingers with Neville's. Her mind scrabbled for answers, she tried to put herself in his position, think of what she could say, a conversation that could take place, answers, anything, and came up dry again and again.

"Ron?" Bewildered green eyes tracked from one face to another. "Neville?"

Ron tried the same as Hermione. Tried to put himself in the other man's place, failing. He simply didn't have the frame of reference. What would he do it he found out that an old girlfriend was pregnant, that he'd never known? He didn't know, couldn't know. His relationships had never been incredibly passionate or flamed, they had always been comfortable, easy going. He could only shake his head in a feeble motion.

Neville was silent for a long moment, during which Harry slowly curled in on himself, hands reaching around to cap his knees, hunching into a solitary ball.

When he finally spoke, the words were measured, even. "You're not....right, Harry." The spark they had seen so long ago in the boy who stood up to his friends during their first year had blossomed into the flame of a man. "You're reaching for something you can't have. Professor Lupin and Snape, they look…happy – no…" he moved forward and crouched down beside the Auror, reaching out to put a hand on his as the other man crumpled further into himself. "Harry…Harry…." He waited an eternity until the other man looked at him. He didn't know _this_ pain, true, but he knew pain, he'd spent his whole life living with it.

"It's not the end of the world," he whispered. "I know Harry, it feels like it but it's not. Don't listen to Remus. He's not Professor Snape, he's not you, the decision isn't his. Did Snape ever say you couldn't know your daughter?" he waited patiently until a slow shake of the other man's head bolstered him.

"Then what does Remus know? Would Snape ever change his mind on something like this?" again, another slow shake of his head, and he felt Hermione's hand creep up his back encouragingly. He wasn't placating the Auror with platitudes or promises he couldn't back up, he was waiting for Harry to provide the answers, guiding Harry through what he already knew, and what he could have.

"Remus and Snape love each other." He felt the muscles under his hand clench at his words and returned the motion, squeezing the hand under his reassuringly. "You don't have to love Snape to love your daughter, Harry. She's your daughter, you can be a father to her, you can still be that...but not right away. Don't expect it to happen right away Harry, it's going to take time. Take that time, you have it, no one's throwing you aside, you have all the time in the world."

Harry's mouth opened, then closed. His eyes flickered nervously over Neville's face, then Hermione's, finally Ron's.

Then there was silence.

* * *

Silence.

It was something he'd longed for in Azkaban, lying there, curled in on himself, hearing the screams, the unspeakable noises from the other imprisoned in that hell. He'd begged for it in his sleep, an end to that horrendous symphony of purgatory.

But now, looking around the knot of tight worried faces, at his godson curled in on himself, the depression permeating the air, he flashed crazily back to his time in that prison. He'd been wrong - silence was worst of all.

"Harry?" He crossed the room, kneeling down beside the other man. Ron mutely tugged forward a chair for him, relief written plainly across his broad face and the Animagus took it gratefully, studying his grandson.

The time when Harry needed him most, and he was completely at a loss. What the hell was he supposed to say? He didn't have a clue, so he just sat there, in silence. After a few minutes, he risked a clumsy arm around the other man's shoulders. "I'm here," he said simply.

If he was expecting a breaking of the ice, or for the other man to suddenly open his heart up and throw himself into his arms, he was disappointed. Harry simply continued to sit there, knees drawn protectively up to his chest, hands gripping his legs, staring off into some distance only he could see.

Silence again. Damnable silence.

"I'm here for you," he pointed out hopefully. "I'm not here to judge, Harry, or to point fingers or anything else. I'm just here for you. If you need to talk."

More silence. This time he decided to let it ride, to let it be until Harry was willing to talk.

After nearly ten minutes it started to get to him again, and he found himself almost desperate to fill the void.

"You know, I always wanted kids…" he started off slowly, gently, feeling his way through the conversation. Harry didn't even seem to be listening to him, staring off into the distance. "Wanted the whole lot. Family, wife….thought I could double up a bit, you know, be the husband and family dog…" not even a whisper of movement at his joke, but he forged on, somehow knowing the other man was listening, he had to be listening. "Then I actually learned what it involved…"

"Don't." Harry finally spoke, voice raw, rusty, the tones of a man who had too much on his mind. "Please Sirius…don't? Please?"

"…ok…" Sirius tightened his grip around the other man's shoulders, letting him know he was there, and finally Harry eased a little, leaning into him, accepting the comfort. If his godson needed silence, then silence he would get. One problem at a time, he reminded himself. Just one problem at a time.

How long they sat in silence, he didn't know. He let himself be content with the feel of his godson in his arms, taking his mind from thoughts on the silence and the situation just by celebrating deep inside the reunion after three years of silence. Just by knowing his godson was back.

Time passed. How much, he didn't know, until a soft cough in the doorway startled him badly enough to almost topple him from his chair. Hermione let out a little squeak at the sound, Ron jerking from his seat and turning around, fists balled as the tenseness of the situation got to him.

"Harry." The little group looked up to where Poppy stood in the doorway, hands twisting nervously in the front of her dress. "Severus wants to talk to you…"


	20. Chapter 19

It was with the pained dignity of a man facing his own execution that Harry got to his feet. He had run the full gamut of emotions in such a short time, perhaps there was nothing left to feel. His face was blank, expressionless as he made his way after the mediwitch. How long had it been since all this had started? Too long, not long enough, time fractured around his reality and shredding like a rotten tapestry in his hands.  
  
No emotion escaped past the mask he'd fitted over his face, a black hole had opened up deep inside, swallowing anything in his soul. Over. Ending. Darkness. That was all that seemed to be inside him as he made his way along the halls, footsteps echoing hollowly in their wake. The walls seemed distorted, looming, harkening back to darker days, a timeslip to when the school wasn't a school, it was something else, something darker, changing to his moods.  
  
And it was a completely different scene that met his eyes as he stepped nervously into the infirmary. Snape was seated up in bed, clad once more in the customary black robes, arms folded neatly around the toddler sharing his bed. The room was warm, lit with that queer late-day light that preceded the glorious tones of a dying sun.  
  
He hesitated, feeling bereft and alone as Poppy left his side, then crept towards the bed. Snape was watching him. Watching him with eyes that made him feel uncomfortable. Words were his distraction, and he scrabbled to find purchase on them. "You look a lot better…" it was a rather mindless banality, but at least it was something to say.  
  
A raised eyebrow was his only answer.  
  
He tried again. "You wanted to speak to me?  
  
"Yes." And Snape said no more, letting the silence fall between them. Stark, imposing, a seemingly solid rock of silent condemnation when in reality he was trying to work out what the hell he was going to say.  
  
As expected, after a while Harry rushed to fill the quiet. "It's a nice name, Araminta," he said hesitantly, pulling a chair closer and fumbling his way into it, nodding to the toddler snoozing in the other man's lap. "Why did you call her that?"  
  
"I named her after my father," absently his hand stroked gently over the black curls.  
  
Harry's brow wrinkled. "Septerian?"   
  
"Not him, my other father you simpering idiot," the familiar classroom derision was back in Snape's voice. "Aramanthus."  
  
"Oh." Harry was at a loss, feeling for the next topic. "She looks happy," he ventured.  
  
"She is. She's being given the childhood I suspect neither you nor I had." A rare smile was caressing the edges of Snape's lips as he looked down at the angel sleeping against him. "Her only worries in life are how best to steal those abominably sticky lollies from the headmaster's desk, and what new torture to inflict upon the staff. Last month she managed to get her hands on Flitwick's wand and turned that damnable cat of Filch's fluorescent pink." A small smile tweaked Harry's lips at that, and he reached out gently, hesitantly to stroke his daughter's  
hair.  
  
"She's a little terror, isn't she?" he said with brittle brightness. "Just like her daddy, hey little one…?" he reached out to touch a smooth cheek as she awoke and Araminta pulled back a little, a wary expression on her face. Little hands clung to tiny portions of Severus' cloak, a little unnerved at the attention and smiles from this strange man.  
  
Reaching down, Snape squeezed her hand gently, but his eyes and mind were elsewhere. He was observing the other man, watching his eyes. And there was a subtle wrongness to them. The wrong kind of love. Desperate,  
hungry, almost as if…  
  
And he suddenly realised why Remus had spoken out against Harry.  
  
This wasn't the Harry he knew. Not the Harry he had spoken to initially. This was a different Harry, less certain, more fragile, confused and scared and he knew he would have to tread very, very carefully with the conversation. It would be so easy to destroy the other man. Too easy, and they'd already destroyed far too much between them.  
  
And looking about the room, he realised this was far too public a place for the kind of discussion they needed to have.  
  
Gently shifting Araminta off his lap and into the bundled covers, he reached for the cane resting beside his bed, hand closing arthritically around the silver head of entwined snakes. Poppy stilled in her furious bustling, hands looking for something to cover her worry and shot him a glance. She was about to speak when a single look silenced her. Remonstration turned to worry, then a helpless concerned fury and she turned her back again, bustling away.  
  
Open mouthed astonishment was Harry's lot as the potions master eased himself out of his sickbed and onto his feet. Completely befuddled, he could only stare at the other man. He'd been injured. Horribly injured. Yet here he was, on his feet, tall, composed, as if he'd just stalked in from terrorising a class of first years.  
  
Snape caught his look and raised another eyebrow. "I heal fast." The words were sharp, cryptic and brooked no argument. "Follow me."  
  
Harry looked bewilderedly around the room. Poppy wouldn't look at him, nor Severus, she had turned her back, busying herself with bottles and papers. "B-but what about our daughter?"  
  
"Minerva will be along shortly. She's already agreed to take care of Araminta for a little while." Straightbacked, proud, if not for the bruises it would be hard to believe the potions master had been injured at all. "Come."  
  
And Harry went.

* * *

No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't pull the potions master into conversation as he stalked along the halls, hurrying his feet a little to keep up with those long strides. He was a man now, not a child, true, but Snape's legs and stride were still longer, forcing him to hurry his steps and making him feel absurdidly like a child being dragged to detention once more.  
  
A door a little down the corridor creaked open at the touch of a hand, revealing a long-disused room, perhaps once a sitting room, a simple stone bench the only furniture, the torches on the wall bursting into life at their entrance, flames flaring a little as the dust motes and cob-webs formed from long-disuse were immolated. Snape entered first, turning to face him in that same supple gesture he remembered so well. A touch of drama in every motion. Not for the first time Harry found himself idly wondering what Severus Snape would have been like on stage.  
  
"Potter. Harry." Snape began, then paused, eyeballing the portrait of a long-dead predecessor hanging on the wall, the sole decoration in the sparse little room. "Do you _mind?_"  
  
The portrait beamed back at him. "Don't mind me, dear fellow, I won't tell a soul…." The smile petered out as Severus' gaze razed the collection of other portraits crowded into his frame.  
  
"Family reunion?" he tried.  
  
"OUT!" the snarl left nothing but the rustling sound of old parchment and the stale scent of dust in the air as the paintings fled, the stained mahogany frame rocking a little in their wake. Reaching out, Severus flipped the frame over so it was facing the wall, just to be sure.  
  
His hand shook a little, weakness coursing through his arm and ended the motion in a flourish, hoping Harry hadn't noticed. Dammit, he'd thought he had more time than this.  
  
Turning back, he saw Harry seated on the bench, smiling softly at him. "I love you."  
  
Severus regarded him for a long moment, steadily. Once, not too long ago in fact, he would have considered it to be a truth of sorts. No matter how misguided the emotion. But something had shifted between them. And those words felt wrong.  
  
He didn't accuse. Didn't deny. Instead, he asked a single question. A simple one. One that had far more impact on the odd construction Harry had built for himself than all the screamed curses in the world.  
  
"Why?"  
  
Harry's smile faltered. He'd never reasoned the why in the reality he'd formed. "H-how could I not?" he stuttered, wrong footed. "You bore my child…we're a family now. We love each other. Isn't that what families do?"  
  
And Snape knew instantly he had hit on the crux of the problem.

Eyes closing for the sheer weight of his own thoughts, he carefully took a seat on the bench, at what he judged a safe distance away. He steepled his hands, studying the tips of his fingers thoughtfully for a moment.  
  
"Harry," he said carefully. "Our relationship ended three years ago."  
  
"I know, I know," Harry leaned forwards, horribly eager and Severus had to fight the urge to lean away from him. "I was an idiot. I never would have left if I'd know, Severus, I never would have said those things, I was upset, it just went wrong, I'm sorry, I never would have said those things. I never would have…I never would have hit you.." the words strangled and died in his throat. "I was so wrong to do that. I know that now. I was so wrong…"  
  
Snape fought down the snort of pure disgust that threatened to rise out of him at the revolting display of grovelling. This wasn't Harry. Not the Harry he knew. It didn't even remotely resemble the proud strong man he'd known and loved three years ago. Something had happened in those years, Something had happened in the short time since he'd seen him last. Something had broken him. And he had to know what. "You know now." His own bitterness spilled from thin lips despite himself. "Why didn't you know then? I would have forgiven you. I would have loved you then."  
  
"And you don't now." It wasn't a question.  
  
Snape didn't answer and Harry didn't push the issue.  
  
"Arguments happen, Harry. No relationship is perfect." His hands were shaking again, and he let the steeple collapse into interlaced fingers to hide it once more. "Our relationship did not end with harsh words or physical blows. It ended in silence."  
  
Silence.  
  
It was Snape's companion this night. Now heavily pregnant, approaching the end of term, everything seemed to ache and he'd learned to take a comfortable position wherever he could find it. Unable to sleep, he'd settled himself quietly at his desk, fingers tracing absent patterns on the blotter beneath them. No sound except the muted ticking of the clock on the mantle, barely heard under a skilful silencing spell. The noise kept Remus awake at night.  
  
The werewolf himself was quite happily drooling over the pillows in the bedroom. A born and bred Gryffindor wrapped up in Slytherin bedsheets. There was probably some giant cosmic punchline in there somewhere.  
  
Remus had taking to sleeping over of late. Not out of any sexual means - health concerns aside they were still slowly feeling their way through the relationship. Companionship. Simple companionship. Comfort. Something Severus was rapidly getting used to, an addiction to which he found it deliciously easy to fall prey.  
  
But still, there was unpleasantness to deal with. With a sigh he pulled quill and parchment towards him. He had no idea why, but there was a letter he had to write. Call it vengeance. Call it petty spite, thumbing his nose, call it catharsis, call it closure, call it forewarning - as far as he was concerned you could call it anything you liked.  
  
He called it a letter.  
  
He'd never invested in a journal. What some might have seen as a way of recording their ideals, perceptions, recording the poison in their soul down like a wound to drain he had seen simply as the means of his own execution. Even his own pensieve had been carefully tended and pruned. Unpleasant memories, clutter of the mind, all of them stored away. The worst memories were the ones he had to keep to himself, forever living in his brain.  
  
Instead he wrote letters. The inevitable end of his writings was usually the flame of the fireplace, but this one actually had a recipient.  
  
He wasn't sure how to start it, as usual, so he simply jumped into the meat of the letter. He still wasn't quite sure why he was writing it. Courtesy? Was there a decorum that applied to situations such as these? Probably. Not that he cared.  
  
Like the others he had sent, he didn't know why he was writing it, watching the quill scratch across parchment as if guided by another hand. It was hardly as if Harry had become his confessional. Their breakup had been far from amiable. Maybe he wrote them because he knew they would never be read.  
  
He'd fallen in love again. As trite as it sounded. What that had to do with Harry or why he should have to know, he had no clue, but it felt right to put it down, it felt right to get the words out. Assuage the other man's guilt? Was there any guilt to feel?  
  
He snorted and tossed his quill back on the table, re-reading his efforts. It seemed the pregnancy had turned him into the waxing philosopher.  
  
As if in response to the thought, his child moved sleepily inside him and he reached down to touch the motion. It was eerie. Disconnected in the middle of a quiet spring night, the warmth of the fire driving away the brisk moon-chilled air. There was a child inside him. A living life, growing, inside his own. The theory was easy to state, the physical proof pushing his nightgown out to almost buffoonish proportions, but the comprehension…..ahh that wasn't so easy. To say was one thing, to comprehend, to fully believe was another. His child. Living, moving inside him. His and Harry's.  
  
Fascinated, he followed the movement with his hand, feeling the slight motion from within and without as a foot pushed lazily against his belly. He remembered the first time that Pomfrey had cast a scan on his child. The way that rapid, tiny pulse had echoed through the room, the sound of a heart barely the size of reel of cotton hammering inside a ribcage as fragile as a baby bird. Inside him. Living, moving, the sounds of life beating deep inside him, a twin to his own, never still. Never silent.  
  
The flickering flames of the fireplace cast strange shadows across the words of his letter, almost invitingly and when he picked it up he was a hair's breadth from casting it into the greedy blaze to join its brethren.  
  
But he didn't. Instead it was strapped to the foot of an owl and sent winging on its way.

* * *

Cornelius Fudge, head of the minister of Magic was also awake. But not to silence, to the ring of battle as he stroked his chin, staring into the portal displaying the training of Unspeakable recruits.  
  
Leaning back in his chair, he let the sounds wash over him, lost in thought. Potter was winning. Again.  
  
It was frightening, that much power in one single man. And worse, Potter himself never knew just what it was he had in his possession. The love of a mother saved him from the killing curse? Romantic, soft-hearted and utterly impossible. How many other mothers had loved and lost? No, Lily Potter had been far, far cleverer than anyone had ever accredited her. An incredible witch, it had been a bad blow to lose her.  
  
He turned his attention back to the portal, watching the smooth cut and parry of the battle taking place in the bowels of the ministry. More than a training ground, it harkened back to the dark days of wizardry, the days they stood against. Know thy enemy, training as an elite of the Ministry was a lesson in survival. And if you didn't learn in time, you died. Curses flew thick and fast through the air. Curses that no wizard should ever know.  
  
Save, of course, the Unspeakables.  
  
_…Saguina, curare, emptos, glaskar…_  
  
"Minister.." his night aide knocked shortly on the door, then entered, parchment in his hands. "An owl arrived. For Potter. Marked high priority from Hogwarts."  
  
_….dalos, shinma, siestana, fabrate…._  
  
"Burn it." He said shortly.  
  
"Sir?" startled, the young Auror stared at the head of ministry.  
  
"Burn it and send the owl back." Fudge took the letter from his hands. "Potter is in training. He's an Unspeakable now, and quite possibly one of the most powerful ones we will ever have. No owls, no visits, no leave. He knows that. We can't afford any distractions." A brief gesture and all that was left were ashes. "If it's important, the sender knows the proper channels to contact."

Of course, the proper channels would no more pass the message on than Fudge himself. But due course had to be observed.

* * *

Back at Hogwarts, Severus Snape absently offered his returned owl a treat before easing himself out of his chair and padding softly to bed, to where Remus was waiting.  
  
He hadn't really expected an answer.  
  
Severus brushed the crumbs of his memory aside. "More than once I attempted to contact you. Many, many times, again and again with no reply. And by the fourth month of my pregnancy, I resigned myself to the fact that I was dead to you."  
  
"You weren't!" the words blurted from his lips without any conscious thought.  
  
"Wasn't I?" there was no accusation in the other man's tone, none in his eyes. "Stop thinking the thoughts others want you to think, Harry. You thought our relationship was over. It **was** over. Are you in love with me, or are you in love with an ideal? You feel pain at the sight of what you perceive as your own failure. You wonder what might have been. Just echoes, that is all they are. Echoes. The same echoes every human being, Muggle and Wizard has felt since time began." Reaching forwards he touched a single finger to the other man's chin. "Take off that mask, Harry. We've never seen the need for them before."  
  
Emotions fought for a place on Harry's face. Pride, love, desperation, until finally they all sagged away, leaving a tired, confused man, aged far beyond what he should be. "Help me, Severus," he whispered. "I don't know what to do. I want to….I want to….But there's no place for me…" his voice was lost, alone. Like a small child abandoned in the cold.  
  
"You are Araminta's father. That is a place that no one can take from you. It's not a position provided to you on conditions. It simply is." The words should have been cold. Should have been damaging, at the best simply indifferent. But they were warm, encouraging, settling over Harry's soul like a comforting blanket, the effects almost visible. One fear chased away. Snape took a breath, trying to ignore the way his still-healing ribs stabbed at his lungs. Now was for the hard part.  
  
"But you claim to love her. On a bare acquaintance. It may hold true for hormonal crushes, but I have never pandered to the notion of parental love simply existing for the sake of itself. My own father was a prime example of that. I don't accept that you love her. Not the way a parent entails." Harry made some noise of protest but he rode over the other man's voice.  
  
"I can see that in your eyes. As did Remus. Which is why he spoke to you as he did. His words were unforgivable but his intent was true. How can you love her? You barely know her. She can be a brat, the worst qualities of our houses combined. Spoiled, noisy, like all children more often than not a detestable sack of screaming vocal chords and insatiable curiosity. But I love her. Because I know her. Not because someone assumed that I would. And through that knowledge and that love, she is my child."  
  
The conversation was turning somewhere he didn't want it. Harry had the horrid feeling he was superfluous, inconsequential, and worse, dangerously close to agreeing with the other man. He'd forgotten the skill that Snape had of listening to his words, reading his emotions, seeing thoughts he didn't dare see for himself and feeding them back to him, making him face them. No. He loved his daughter. It didn't matter that he didn't know her, he loved her, loved her deeply, he had to, he was her father, and Snape was too, and , and and he loved Snape too. He did. He did!  
  
His voice was desperate. "Severus, I love you!"  
  
"And I don't love you." Snape said coldly, the words a slap to the face of an hysteric. "Once again you're mouthing the words that others are supplying you. What is expected, the noble,_ Gryffindor_ way. All your life you danced to the tunes that others have played for you. And I despised you for it. The man I grew to love was one that learned to miss the steps. The man I loved learned to look beyond what was expected of him, to speak his own words. The father of my child was the man I grew to love because he was a man, a man in his own right in a time when he shouldn't have been forced to be. A man who rose beyond simple expectations of him and became himself."  
  
His tone gentled, a single hand resting on the other man's shoulder. "You are losing that, Harry," he said softly. "I am not here to break you. That is never my intention. But you are losing that. You are losing yourself. You are losing to guilt, to preconceptions of what you should do. To fear of stepping wrong. And you will step wrong, Harry. As I have. As we all have. But one wrong step is not irrevocable. It's the beginning of a lesson. One that will last your whole life, and hiding from it accomplishes nothing."  
  
He pushed himself shakily to his feet, gripping the head of his cane for support. The potion was starting to wear off, and he had to leave, **now**, before he did something horrendously dramatic like collapsing at the other man's feet and completely destroying the whole structure and impact of their conversation.  
  
"I wish for Araminta to know her _father_, not that fear. And those words you whisper so passionately aren't the truth. There is a place for you. But only as Harry Potter. As a _father_. Not a blind robot attaching his emotions to the coat-tails of others."  
  
He forced himself to keep walking as Harry crumpled behind him, his own mouth twisted around a feeling he couldn't define. Memory had become pain, and Harry wasn't the only one who still bore the scars. His mind was starting to cloud, vision blurring in and out. He hoped he'd accomplished something, some measure of peace, some lancing of an old infected wound between them. To rebuild was one thing - but not on lies or misconceptions. Never that.  
  
He paused at the door at the sound, back to the other man, hiding the pain on his own face. "Harry," he said softly. "You have faced dementors. You have faced death eaters. Enemies bearing the faces of friends. You have faced Voldemort himself. Innumerable forces of darkness. And you have defeated them all. Don't allow something as stupid as the opinions of others to destroy you now." There was a pause, and the potions master reached out briefly to grasp the door frame, voice gentle, gentler than the Auror had ever heard him before. "Love me, love your daughter, it doesn't matter. Do not love us, walk away, learn to love, it doesn't matter. Decisions made here are not ever lasting. Nor do they even _ have_ to be made. Love is not a condition you are honour-bound to feel on the words of others. It never is."  
  
Then he was gone.

* * *

Severus wasn't sure how he made his way back to the infirmary. He clutched his cane with white knuckles in his good hand, his broken, splinted fingers scrabbling desperately at the stone walls as he fought to stay upright. It was only a short walk, but it was an eternity to him, closing his eyes against waves of dizziness and relying on whispered encouragement and directions from the portraits on the walls. Concerned hands of wizards and witches long gone reached out uselessly to catch him as he almost fell, thudding against the flat surface of their canvas medium, a sigh of relief surging up and down the hall as he finally staggered through the infirmary door.  
  
Swaying in the doorway, gripping the frame for support, Severus found his lover waiting for him, golden eyes huge with worry. He shook his head a little, thinking he hadn't seen the werewolf look so bad in a long time. Since he'd first taken up the position of defence against the dark arts, as a matter of fact.  
  
"Remus." He straightened reflexively, and couldn't deny the hiss of pain that escaped through gritted teeth. He didn't refuse Poppy's support as she hurried to his side, nor the werewolf's, leaning heavily on the pair as they helped him fumble his way to the bed. Reaching up as Poppy fussed about and scurried for wand and potions, he held the other man's eyes, forcing words out past heaves of air as he clutched at a worn sleeve. "You." He tugged harder, almost pulling Lupin down on top of him. "You and I have to have a **talk**."

* * *

Harry sat alone on one of the Quidditch stands, staring vacantly out across the field. He wasn't really sure why he'd come here. It had been his place to think when younger, to look out across the field and just let his mind sort itself out without any conscious effort on his part. The sun was setting, shading the air in soft blues and mauve, the taste of summer in the air. Not that he saw it.  
  
"Ain't worth jumpin', if that's what yeh thinkin'" the creak of wood heralding Hagrid's arrival, the gameskeeper moving with surprising quiet for someone so large. Turning to stare absently at the other man, Harry never looked so young as he did right then and the half-giant was irreversibly reminded of that bewildered little boy he'd rescued from the muggles on his eleventh birthday. He'd been on his way back to his hut after rolling the grass of the pitch one last time before summer growth and had spotted the other man perched high in the Gryffindor stands.  
  
"Beautiful up here, ain't it?" he settled himself on the bench beside the Auror, looking out across the field with an air of pleasure. But Harry looked like he had other fish to fry.  
  
They sat in companionable silence for a while, then Harry stirred. "Hagrid…was I wrong? When I decided to stay? Everything seemed so happy, everyone's moved on, it's not my Hogwarts any more." His eyes stayed locked on the view from the stand, drifting across the landscape. "I don't know what to do…" a bark of laughter welled up from his chest and was gone in an instant. "I…I don't even know what I feel. Would it have been better if I'd never found out about I had a da- about Araminta?"  
  
Hagrid rocked back in his seat. Surprise burst across his face, and with a face so large it was impossible to miss. "You didn't know? I thought yeh knew. Only reason I blurted so loud in the first place." Guilt chased the surprise away as he remembered his little 'talk' with Remus. "ah, shite…" his fingers twitched in contrition and he scratched at his massive furry beard. "Thought yeh'd known and left him…"  
  
Betrayal larged Harry's eyes and stiffened his limbs. "You thought - you thought I'd - "  
  
"Hey hey hey now, don't mark me wrong." Hagrid held up a placating hand. "I'm not laying no blame on you Harry. I didn't think you had, but I did, if yeh know what I mean. Not laying any blame on you. I thought you knew, and you and Snape had worked out an agreement or somesuch, when you left him. Thought I was doing you a favour by keeping it like you two wanted. Not that I blamed yeh, no, not at all. Some people just don't have it in them to love as parents. Me mum was one of them. Maybe it's kinder that way, just up and leaving. Leastways I could pretend she loved me, and she was just real far away. Better than livin' with her day to day an' knowing she didn't. But I'm sorry. I shouldna thought that of you."  
  
It was odd. Harry didn't know if he wanted to feel betrayed by the fact Hagrid thought him capable of walking from something like that, or proud that Hagrid respected his character enough to create a reasoning for it. Shaking his head a little, he turned his gaze away, staring back out along the pitch.  
  
"What do I do now?" it was more to himself than anything else.  
  
Hagrid rubbed a finger across the bridge of his giant nose. "I ain't tole no-one this, Harry," he said quietly. "So I'd appreciate if you could keep this all quite like for me, right?" He waited patiently for the Auror's nod.  
  
"I met me mum for the first time a few years back. You know when Dumbledore asked me an' Madame Maxine to speak with the giants? Ran into a woman who looked real familiar. Well, turned out that's 'cause she was my mum. Was right weird, I'll tell you that."  
  
He paused for a moment, turning the memory over in his mind. "So there was me mum. Right there. Face to face. Didn't know what I expected, right out of the blue but…she didn't love me. Well," he rocked back a little in his seat, the wooden bench creaking with the movement "How could she? Never knew me growing up, all of a sudden there I am on her doorstep…" His shoulders moved in a shrug that belied his own pain, eyes fixed on the middle distance. "Best we could manage after a while was a bit of a friendship. Like I said, from what I'd heard from me da' she wasn't that much of a loving type in the first place, not really, and there was just too much years between us."  
  
Reaching out, he gently laid a hand the size of a ham on the Auror's shoulder. "She couldn't love me, Harry. She didn't know me. Not as a kid, the best she could do was get ta know the man I am now. But you have those years. Those young ones, the important ones. You and 'minta. And don't you let none take them from you. Not Perfessor Remus, not anyone. You're her father. And you've got the chance to still be one while she really needs you."  
  
Reaching into a pocket of his giant hairy coat, he fished out a handkerchief and dabbed with an odd delicacy at his eyes. "Gah. Look at me. Blubberin' like a babe." He hefted his bulk off the seat. "I've got to get the Horizanal's fed and bedded down before the sun sets or they'll be in a right mood for class tomorrow." He cocked his head down at the other man. "Want to join me? Bit o' work is great for clearing the mind, and we can talk more if you like…"  
  
The offer touched Harry and a genuine smile caressed his face for the first time in a while. "no…I'm all right. I think I'll just sit up here…" he waved absently at the pitch, the sunset, the castle in general. "Just sit here and think for a bit."  
  
The half-giant picked him up in a huge hug and he almost disappeared into the folds of the other man's coat. "You come see me, Harry, all right?" the tones were muffled. "You sit up here and you do your thinking and when you're right to talk, you come down and see me, ok? Ain't going to have to do this alone, you've got your friends here, you've got Ron and Hermione, and Neville and me. And more. And we're all here for you, all right?" He let the Auror down slowly, hesitated, then patted his head before making his way down the stairs.  
  
Hands gripping his own arms, Harry returned to his vigil of the mind. He blinked slowly, staring off into the distance as the memory of Hagrid's words washed over him. The same words everyone had said. The same thoughts everyone else had.  
  
And if everyone had them, didn't that mean they were right?  
  
The sun caught the edge of a quaffle hoop, reflecting into his face and he squinted his eyes against it. Then again, Everyone had said that Sirius Black had betrayed his parents. Everyone had said that werewolves were dangerous. Everyone said that giants and half-giants were evil. Everyone said that Snape was a cold, unfeeling bastard, a death eater, a murderer of the worst kind.  
  
Everyone…  
  
Everyone…  
  
Everyone said that he should love his daughter without knowing her, without caring for her, simply because he had fathered her.  
  
The sun was slipping away, deep blue shading to black slowly encroaching on the dim gleam of the day. Delicate painted clouds pattered about the sky, the flight of an owl dancing across the darkening heavens, a scene painted by nature on a canvas no artist could possibly hope to achieve or emulate but he saw none of it, mind exploding with a sudden realisation.  
  
Everyone was full of shit!  
  
And somewhere, deep inside, the real Harry Potter finally stood up.

* * *

The castle was warm against the growing chill of night as he made his way inside. A few questions to awed students had him on his way to McGonagall's chambers, mind still churning and a little stunned at his newfound freedom. He felt like grinning stupidly, or doing something loud and obnoxious but first….first he had a little girl to see.  
  
The door opened at his approach and he leaned against the doorframe, just watching, peeking into a tiny, private life. And what he saw, made him indeed, grin stupidly.  
  
The toddler was chasing a cat around the room, giggling madly, every so often catching the feline and cooing as she stroked the soft fur. Stopping mid-pursuit, she blinked up at him in the doorway, then waved a greeting.  
  
The cat turned, saw him, and he swore it blushed. Then in the blink of an eye, Professor McGonagall stood where the cat had been. "Mister Potter!" she hurriedly smoothed her robes a little, touching loose wisps of hair into place and generally trying to pretend she hadn't spent the past half hour playing gleefully with a rampant two year old. Araminta scowled at the loss of her plaything, features twisting into an expression usually found on her other father's face.  
  
Harry choked down his laughter and made his way into the room. Oh, what he would have given to have had that image in his head any one of hundreds of times his old head-of-house had pulled him across the coals as a child. The transfigurations professor had a slightly panic-stricken look on her face, but she didn't interfere as the Auror bent down and picked up his daughter. She'd been there for the fight between Harry and Remus, but she'd also decided privately that the ultimate onus was on Snape himself, no matter what she'd seen, and Severus hadn't forbidden the other man from seeing his daughter. Then again, if he had she probably would have disregarded him anyway.  
  
Araminta shifted herself comfortably in her father's arms, staring up at him. "I've got something to tell you," he told her seriously and she stilled. She knew that tone of voice, it was one her papa used when he told her important things, or great secrets. It was the tone he'd used when telling her about how her Remuu turned into a giant wolf on some nights, and how he had a special medicine so he wouldn't hurt her, and that he would never hurt her, no matter what other stupid people said. It was that tone of voice, and she listened attentively to the sad little man who had brought her home to her papa.  
  
Harry paused for a moment, moving to look away , then turning his eyes back. He was suddenly afraid. Would it be so easy? So simple as a single realisation shake off the expectations, to take this path to learn how to love? Could he even love, the way a parent did? Did he even have it in him?  
  
_/ You will step wrong, Harry. As I have. As we all have. But one wrong step is not irrevocable. It's the beginning of a lesson. /  
_  
Severus' words floated through his mind, bolstered him and he let out a slow breath, the fear easing. It didn't completely vanish. Maybe it never would. And maybe he never would love her as a parent.  
  
But he was going to find out.  
  
He held his daughter in his arms for a moment, green eyes staring into green. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "I don't love you." The truth set him free. Remus had been right after all. He heard McGonagall make some choked noise behind him, and he drew Araminta closer, wrapping both arms around her in a tentative hug. "I don't love you….I don't even know you yet. Give me a little time?" this last was soft, plaintive.  
  
Araminta stared up at him, green eyes penetrating green. Then she reached forwards and pressed his nose. " 'kay." 


	21. Chapter 20

He took Neville's advice, and took the time. Time away from his work as an Auror, time to think, to feel. Time to get to know his…family…  
  
It was almost surreal to take things slow, the jar from the frenetic rush of the past few days leaving him a little disorientated. He spent a lot of his time at first just avoiding Remus. It was hard enough trying to adjust without having to think about the bad blood between them. Which of course inevitably led to avoiding Severus by proxy. Which perhaps, was a good thing, until he sorted himself out.  
  
Snape, for his part was oddly grateful for the avoidance. Not only did it give him a little time to come to terms with his own ambivalent feelings, it also allowed him a little time to hide his infirmity.  
  
The setback hadn't been as bad as they'd feared. In fact, the potion had helped, a little - but while his recovery had made a gigantic step he was still far from healed. And the inactivity once would have chafed at him, but this time he allowed himself the luxury of indolence. He'd learned to listen to his own body, to take things far easier during his pregnancy, and it was a habit that had taken root and mellowed him a little over the years.  
  
Poppy, for her part had destroyed the remainder of the potion. The war was over, it wasn't needed. And she would be damned if she ever let anyone else use it again. The price was far too high.  
  
But the dynamic - as welcome as the breathing space was - wasn't working, a half-crippled mockery of what it should have been and soon Remus was hesitantly approaching Harry with an olive branch which the Auror, with a little encouragement from Sirius, gingerly accepted.  
  
Ron, oddly enough had been the first to leave. Not by choice - his work as an Auror called him away. Neville and Hermione returned to their research work a week or so later, but none of his friends had left without first extracting a promise from Harry to keep in touch. None of them wanted the long silence of the past years to return. Ever.  
  
Hermione made good on her threat of daily mail, and soon there was a steady pipeline of owls winding back and forth - from the research institute to Hogwarts and back, likewise for the ministry.  
  
It felt like a rebirth.

* * *

It was no surprise that he hadn't been welcomed back into the fold with open arms by the general school population once his 'dirty little secret' was out. In fact, most times he was a pariah, the outsider in the school community but he found it didn't actually hurt so much. Three years of separation had distanced him a little from the hurt from those he knew, and as for the general student body - well, those that had been there during his years he really didn't know, concentrating too much on just trying to survive. Those important to him already knew the story, and didn't judge or condemn. And that gave him the strength to face those who did.  
  
Harry ended up spending a lot of time with Sirius. They gravitated towards each other, the 'outsiders' of the little group. Not quite the right wording, they were never made feel unwelcome or awkward, but still finding his place he felt too often like the odd piece of the jigsaw that didn't quite fit. Yet. Hopefully.   
  
They talked for long hours on this and that. True to his word, Sirius didn't judge, didn't take sides. Impartial, or maybe a cop out, it didn't matter, Harry found himself needing someone who would just be there. Who knew what was going on, who would listen to him, but wasn't involved.   
  
It was funny, but they'd never really talked. First it was just getting to know each other, then Pettigrew, the TriWizard tournament, order of the Phoenix, on and on, one thing after another. Troubles shared and burdens halved, they'd talked about the present and the future, but hardly the past and they took the opportunity to make it up in spades. Not as man to child, but as man to man. And Sirius gave him a warts and all edition about his family.  
  
All his family.  
  
For the first time, Harry heard about his grandparents - his father's parents. Sirius didn't know too much about Lily's muggle family, apart from the perfectly natural urge to throttle half of them. But he knew a bit about James' parents.  
  
James was their only child, born rather late in life - in fact, it seemed a little miracle to the pair, who had never expected to be able to have any children.   
  
Sirius had only met James' father a few times, and he was a few feathers short of a snitch, to be blunt. A brilliant wizard from an esteemed house - and a renowned historian, but outside his field he was rather absent-minded in a vacant, put-your-elbow-in-the-gravy-dish manner. He'd been a Hufflepuff, and had died peacefully in his sleep, napping under a window in a warm little patch of sunlight, not long after Harry was conceived. He never got to hold his grandson.  
  
His wife, Harry's grandmother, had been a squib, endlessly fascinated with the Muggle life. Bits and pieces of Muggle technology had slipped into their life, compensating for the simple things her feeble magic couldn't accomplish. A contented housewife in a home filled with old money, her warm and gentle personality had always welcomed any friend into her house. Both she and Harry's grandfather were deeply in love, and she had happily spent her days gently shepherding her absent minded husband about the house, sitting by the fire and knitting endless jumpers and scarves while he pored over his tomes.  
  
James was loved, treasured, and spoiled **rotten.** Sirius even went as far as to call him an obnoxious little shit - but softened the words with a grin and the acknowledgement that they were all pretty much obnoxious little shits. Thankfully, it was something they'd grown out of.  
  
Leaning back, the animagus had lost himself in the happy years. He looked younger, more carefree, and Harry had a glimpse of the man he would have been in another life.  
  
Sirius and James had known each other a little before Hogwarts. Both from Godric's hollow, they'd run into each other here and there, enough for them to cling together as familiar faces on the crowded platform when heading off to school for the first time.  
  
They had stuck close together as they made their way along the train, choosing a booth near the end of the train. The only occupant had been a thin-looking young boy in the corner beside the window, who had looked up and smiled tentatively at them before returning to his book.  
  
The trolley had arrived soon into the trip, and with the usual appetite of young boys they'd ordered four of everything.  
  
James had caught the quiet thin boy looking longingly at their snacks before forcing himself back to his book, noted the torn sleeves of his worn robe and had been about to tentatively offer a chocolate frog when a frantic ball of student had hurtled down the corridor and into their booth. Burying himself under Sirius' legs, he'd squealed like a stuck pig when a tall blonde appeared in their doorway, evidently in pursuit.  
  
He was dressed in a fine silk robe cut in an imitation of the Hogwarts style, hair slicked back from narrow features and exuded an air of arrogance that had set them all off.   
  
It was hate at first sight.  
  
Leaning arrogantly against the doorframe, the blonde had calmly introduced himself as Lucius Malfoy. When that failed to make any impact on the assembly, he'd proceeded to mock Sirius' ridiculous, parent-enforced haircut, the worn and ragged look of the robes of the quiet, golden-eyed boy in the corner, and last, but not least, James Potter himself. The richer houses knew each other by reputation, several long dreary dinners both their fathers had presided at and he and James had butted heads before. Son of a squib and how the standards of Hogwarts must be slipping if they allowed a magicless little toad like him into the halls. Or perhaps his father had mislaid him at the station?  
  
Recognising a fight in the making, the small fat boy - Pettigrew - had squeaked and hid under the seat. Standing, James had quite coolly proved his magical worth by stunning the boy, Sirius had followed it up with a rather endearing bonnet and bib, the little fat boy had garnered the courage to smear the blonde's face with chocolate and jam half a frog into one hand, giggling all the while - and the quiet, golden-eyed boy who was named Remus Lupin had stood up and quite calmly poured a pitcher of iced Pumpkin juice over Malfoy's crotch. Then they'd shoved him out into the train corridor and introduced themselves to each other.  
  
They'd been fast friends for that moment on.

* * *

Tales of Hogwarts escapades flew past over the days - of discovering Remus' secret and the decision and learning of how to become Animagi. Books swiped from the restricted section, crouched under blankets with wand and book, gobbling bertie botts by the handful while poring over the means and ways, practising in the Forbidden Forest - and one instance where James had only been able to transform halfway, and how they'd made up a hasty excuse that he was a centaur when their frightened yells had attracted the gameskeeper Mahoney. The fact that James' bottom half was human with a stag upper half had drawn a doubletake, but they'd managed to get away with it.  
  
Officially forming the Marauders, the creation of the map, meeting Lily Evans and how James had fallen head over heels in love. Pranks on Slytherin, pranks on teachers - hell, pranks on _everyone_ - evidently the Weasley twins had nothing on their predecessors - Quidditch matches, study sessions, graduation. Good times.  
  
Then Voldemort.  
  
Here Sirius' tales of the past had stuttered and died. Man to child or man to man, there were times in his past he never wanted to touch on again.  
  
And Harry didn't push the issue. He didn't want to talk about his own past either. Did, yet at the same time didn't. There was so much he wanted to tell the other man. About the past three years, the things he had seen, the things he had done, but he kept them to himself, deep inside himself. Sirius' stories of bravery and mayhem and friendship and good ol' Gryffindor made him feel ugly, somehow filthy for betraying his house and friends for so long.  
  
So he talked about the present. And the future. Sirius learned early on that the best way to get Harry to open up from the oddly quiet man he'd become was to start a conversation about his daughter. Rather than spend every available minute with her, he divided his time, taking it slow. Maybe an hour here, a day there, letting them slowly get used to each other.  
  
Araminta, for her part, took it all in stride. More than used to being cosseted by staff, students, ghosts and portraits alike, she saw nothing unusual with Harry's gradual attempts at affection. After all, she was a two year old. It was hers by right.  
  
But still, Harry fretted a little. He'd never been around children before, except for when he _was_ one and was absolutely terrified he was going to stuff something up. Not feeling comfortable enough yet with Remus and Snape, he poured himself out to Sirius.  
  
He was a father. But he didn't have the first clue on how to _be_ one! What was he supposed to do, was he supposed to be a stern disciplinarian? But what if she hated him for it?? But if he was too soft, she'd walk over him and how could she respect him? The dichotomy maddened him at times.  
  
Sirius listened patiently, then gave him the best advice he'd ever heard. "Be yourself. And let her be herself. You'll sort out how things work - just like any other relationship. Just give it a little time." A grin sparked his features. "That's the exact same thing I said to _your_ father. When he had the same worries about you. And hey, it worked…"  
  
Harry gave a hesitant little smile at the unexpected link to his father. Then it melted into a puzzled frown. "How do you know this stuff? _You_ don't have any children….."   
  
Sirius' grin widened. "Cousins. Lots and lots of younger cousins…"  
  
Harry had to grin at that, and Sirius' grin widened to the point where it threatened to dislodge the top of his head as the Auror casually tossed himself into the lounge beside him with an honest laugh. Merlin, it was amazing how fast the Harry he knew was coming back. In the past few weeks he'd gained some weight back, lost some of that haunted look - started to _smile_, real smiles, not the brittle spun-glass mimicries he previously had to offer. Still a little uncertain, still a little worried, but they were perfectly natural fears, and they could work on that.   
  
"There's so much I've missed, Sirius," Harry's soft voice drew him from his reverie, smile fading to a wistful look. He drew his knees up to his chest, rested folded hands on top of them, then his chin on top of that. "I missed her first smile, her first words, her first birthday - Merlin, I don't even know when her birthday _is!_ I wish I'd known. I wish I'd been there when she was born, she's such a happy, lively little girl Sirius, I can't believe she's mine. She deserved better from me."  
  
"It wasn't your fault, Harry. You know that. And you are giving her what she deserves - the chance to know her father." Leaning over, he nudged Harry gently with a shoulder, all at once a gesture of support and a distraction. "And trust me, you didn't want to be there when she was born. I was there…kind of…"  
  
"No." Snape said  
  
"Absolutely not." Snape said.  
  
"Not in the deepest realms of random possibility." Snape said.  
  
Remus offered him a tentative smile.  
  
"Shit." Severus sighed. "You're going to try and make me do it anyway, aren't you?"  
  
"It's just until the baby's born, I promise. Sirius has already agreed, and he promised not to do anything to interrupt your classes. You won't even notice he's there…"  
  
"Remus, **no**." Snape folded his arms high up on his chest, elbows brushing against his belly. They were alone in the DADA classroom, brittle light seeping through the high-set windows and warming tiny patches on the stone floor around the warded door. "Two reasons. One, I don't need a babysitter - especially one as dubious as Black. Two, I have students facing exams in a short period of time. How much work do you think they will achieve in my classes with _that_ staring at them?"  
  
Remus nodded to Sirius, Sirius grinned, slipped off the desk he was using as a seat, and Snape watched as he shrunk down to a large furry dog.  
  
"Delightful." Snape remarked. "I'm sure that the sight of a large Grim before exams will reassure them to no end."  
  
Sirius resisted the urge to pee on his leg.  
  
"Please Severus? They won't even notice him. He'll stay quiet under your desk during all your classes, I promise - "  
  
"No!"  
  
" - and I know your back has been hurting you today, so maybe he can carry some things for you? I don't want you to push yourself…"  
  
Snape snorted. "Really? I thought that was what Wingardium Leviosa was for. And the marvellous thing about charms is that they don't have fleas." Sirius stopped mid-scratch and tried to nonchalantly put his leg back down.  
  
"Please, Severus? I'm just worried. Poppy said it could be any time now and I know you won't give up your classes. I can't be with you, I have my own classes, but Sirius doesn't teach and I'd feel a lot better knowing you weren't alone with a class of panicking students when your time comes…" Remus gave him a pleading look and Sirius didn't even attempt to hide a doggy snigger. It was the one that the werewolf rarely used, the one that made him look like a worried child, the one that made you give in instantly to whatever he wanted.  
  
And evidently not even Snape was immune. With a ruffled sigh, he gave in. "I agree to have your **dog** present in my classroom solely to assuage any worries you may have. Although I warn you the first time he attempts to mark his territory he shall go sailing out the uppermost window of the astronomy tower with a print remarkably resembling my boot upon his backside....."  
  
"Of course." Remus was contrite.   
  
Sirius scowled. _hey!_ He was about to protest - then turned his head and became interested in a carpet pattern as the pair did their smoochy kissy thing. While he could deal with the fact that the pair were _together_, it didn't mean he had to _watch_ it.  
  
"Love you…"  
  
_Or_ hear it.  
  
Turning, Snape waddle-stalked out of the room. Pausing in the door, the corners of his lips twitched evilly.  
  
"Heel, Black."

* * *

Sirius whined a little doggy whine and pushed his nose further into his paws. Humiliating. That was the word. Completely and utterly humiliating. The only bright spot in the day was the fact that Snape couldn't bring himself to name him something completely vomit-provoking like "fluffy" or "cuddles" or god-forbid "Pepita"   
  
The dungeons were hot and muggy with endless steam and fires from the cauldrons, lazily circling his ears and making him drowsy. He could feel it build up in his fur, layers of grime taking root and finally understood why Snape always looked so damn greasy.  
  
"Combining dandelion with hops negates the soporific effect…"  
  
He yawned and scratched lazily with a hind paw at an itch on his side. And he'd thought the classes were bad enough as a student. Four of them, in a row, without even the distraction of seeing how many Slytherin concoctions he could fuck up with a well-placed flobberworm were almost more than he could take. He would have just drifted off to sleep, but he'd promised Remus he would keep watch, and every time he felt his eyes lid Snape just _happened_ to thwack him one with a casually shifted foot.   
  
Staring at those polished boots he wondered if it would be worth the hell he would catch if he nipped one of them. Not _bit_, just…nipped. Made his displeasure known.  
  
Probably not.  
  
Whining again, he licked his nose and tried not to gag on the taste left in his mouth from the atmosphere.  
  
The class became involved, distracting Snape and it would have been a perfect opportunity for Sirius to drift off to sleep - he knew once he was napping, it would take the forces of hell to wake him up, but… he sighed miserably. He'd promised Remus.  
  
Staring mournfully up from his sprawl against the desk, he saw one of Snape's hands drift down to cradle under his belly, as if to support the weight. Ah hell, be honest, he'd promised Remus, but he also worried a little about Snape. He looked like a giant man-shaped water balloon - get him too close to any source of heat and **_sploosh_** he'd explode.  
  
Had to admire him as a teacher, though. He refused to abandon his students - and to be frank, he could come up with all the snarky reasons he wanted but he knew it was refusal to abandon them before their O.W.L.S and N.E.W.T.S - despite the fact he was now bigger than a house and due to drop any day now, by Poppy's reckoning.  
  
Only Snape himself and Remus knew how difficult it was for the potions master of late. And of course, through Remus, Sirius himself. Good sleep was a rarity, everything seemed to hurt, little feet poking and prodding all hours… He remembered quite vividly how uncomfortable Lily had been as she approached the end of her pregnancy - and she'd been built to bear children!  
  
Well, obviously, so was Snape, but still….  
  
He had an absurd urge to lick Snape's hand comfortingly and shuddered. He'd been spending too much time in dog form. Not to mention the fact that the astronomy tower was awfully high up and he wasn't exactly aerodynamically shaped in either form.  
  
Lost in his musings, he almost missed it.   
  
A light _ting_ touched the air, the sound almost lost under the bubble of cauldrons and crackle of fires. And the wrist of the hand cradling Snape's belly turned lime green.  
  
Sirius stared stupidly at it for a moment, almost ready to dismiss it as some weird potion reaction - then remembered what it was. A charm. One Madame Pomfrey had placed there a week ago. A warning one. Warning…  
  
Lifting his wrist, Snape studied the colour of the charm for a moment, making a soft noise of dismissal.  
  
Then he continued quite calmly with his marking.  
  
Sirius yelped. Was the man insane? He got to his four feet, preparing to shift into human form. Suddenly the backache Remus had mentioned took on a whole different meaning. The daft git was in _labour!_   
  
A booted foot descended on his head and pushed it back down to the floor, until Snape was done with the paper he was working on. Straightening it on the pile on the desk, he called the attention of his class with an even tone.  
  
"McPartlin," the dark-haired boy approached the desk with all the enthusiasm of a pending castration victim. "Go to Professor Lupin. You will find him teaching a class of your fellow simpletons in the Defence against the Dark Arts classroom. Inform him that I am on my way to the infirmary." The student blinked for a second, then panicked as he realised what was happening and hurled himself out of the classroom without a word.  
  
Cauldrons were ignored and quills laid down at the sound of the rapidly fleeing footsteps. This looked a lot more interesting than boiling slugs!  
  
Snape returned their stares with a look of complete and utter apathy. "The rest of you, I advise you to take advantage of the only time I will ever allow myself to be free of your nauseating presence and depart. For those of you too befuddled by multi-syllabic words to glean my meaning: Class Dismissed. It appears that my daughter is ready to grace the world with her presence." So calmly was the news delivered that the students were half-packed with glee at the shortened lesson before it sunk in.  
  
"Oh my god! He's in labour!"  
  
"WHAT?"  
  
"Snape's gonna pop?? Cool, can we watch?"  
  
Severus brought his hand down on the desk with a short smack. He'd never had to resort to such pathetic means before - he usually found that simply stalking into a room was enough to terrify his students into obedience. But this time, cruder methods were called for.  
  
They completely ignored it, of course.  
  
Snape rolled his eyes. Remus was right. He was in labour with a class of panicking students.  
  
"Sir…excuse me…sir..?" He stared with astonishment at the slight student standing before him. Donnelly. "Are you all right? Do you need someone to help you to the infirmary?"  
  
Well, well, well. Surprises never ceased. Of all his students he wouldn't have thought Donnelly capable of rational thought in a crisis. All that seemed to fill that rather empty head was McPartlin and Quidditch. And the abominable habit of singing "We're on the snitch"…  
  
He afforded a thin smile to the worried looking blonde. "No. An…_attachment_ to the school has already been alerted and will be along shortly." A pointed foot up his backside let Sirius know this was his cue and he slunk out of the classroom, dodging through the scurrying feet of the students as they packed up. Outside in the hall, away from prying eyes, he quickly changed back to human form and re-entered the dungeon.  
  
Shifting a little in his seat, Snape prepared to stand and just leave the entire panicky blithering lot to their hysteria. Except he couldn't. Not in his classroom, not with his potion ingredients, those Costerian snake feet alone were fragile as hell and had cost him a fortune. Damn.  
  
"Everyone OUT!" Sirius' painfully cheerful boom rose easily across the babble and got the attention of the students. "Out, out out! You've got free time now and the sun is shining, the birds are singing…"  
  
Severus sneered. Singing birds indeed. Nasty balls of feathers and crap. But it seemed to be working - quite happily leaving matters in the hands of an adult, the students poured out of the dungeons, chattering excitedly. After all, what could go wrong?  
  
The Slytherin stayed.  
  
A bare handful of students, they gathered themselves in a tight worried group before his desk, stepping around to help him to his feet, eyes flicking from their head of house to the animagus and back again in a silent question.  
  
Here, Severus' tone softened. "It's safe to leave me alone with him," he assured them. "There's likely to be a long wait ahead, so I advise you to use the time to distract yourselves." His tone softened even more and he laid a gentle hand on the shoulder of a particularly worried looking student. "I'll have a house-elf keep you appraised of the situation, I promise. Go."  
  
Slowly the Slytherin left - reluctantly, but as head of house, Snape's word was their god.  
  
With the students went Sirius' cheerful façade, leaving behind the face of a man clinging to sanity by the skin of his teeth. When he'd agreed to babysit for Remus, he didn't actually _believe_ the greasy git was actually going to go **into** labour!  
  
Reaching out he went to put a supporting arm around Snape's back, changed his mind, went to put it back and ended up just shepherding around him in small circles as the other man made his sedate way out of the room and up the short stairwell. "It's ok, it's all right, nearly there, just a few more steps, don't worry, calm down"  
  
"Take your own advice, Black." Snape snapped back. "I'm the one in labour here, not you." He sat down abruptly on the top step as the thought suddenly seemed to hit him.  
  
He. Was going to. Have. A child.   
  
"Oh dear." He murmured faintly.  
  
"Snape?" Sirius hovered. He fussed. He gave in and sat down next to the other man. "what is it? Is it the baby?" he reached out and put a hand on the other man's belly, feeling a slight ripple and lift with a contraction.  
  
Bewildered, Snape looked up at him. It was an expression he'd never seen before. Faintly the potions master asked if there was some sort of spell that could just put a giant hiatus on the entire world while he tried to adjust to the situation.  
  
"Uh…it's a bit late now…" Sirius tried to put a positive spin on the situation, a 'make do with what you have' if you will, and near got his head bitten off for his trouble.  
  
"Of course it's bloody too late you inbred mongrel!" Slapping the animagus' hand aside, Snape gripped the banister and pushed himself back to his feet. The moment was gone, and he made his way along the corridor.  
  
Five steps along and they ran into Remus.   
  
The werewolf was out of breath, robes flapping and boots skidding across the stone floor as he came to a stop alongside them. "I got your message," he panted. "You ok?"  
  
Mutely, Snape showed him his wrist.  
  
"Oh…we've got a while to go then...Just lemme….lemme get my breath back…" Remus staggered to a nearby bench and sagged down on it, resting his hands between his legs. "Ran all the way," he explained between pants. "Didn't even know I could run that fast…"   
  
"Accio water." Snape waddled over and gingerly sat next to the other man, proffering the glass.   
  
"Thanks." Remus took the glass, then wrapped his fingers around the other man's wrist with a little smile.  
  
Sirius stared at them. Calm, sedate, just like they were having a picnic. "Snape's in labour" he pointed out, just in case the other two had missed it.  
  
"We know. Got a while to go though." Remus gulped down the last of the water and sent the glass back to where it belonged. "There's no need to panic. It's not going to be a three second labour - Sev and I both know that." And discussed it. Dramatic scenes of comic hysteria were definitely _not_ the style of the potions master. "Poppy put a charm on his left wrist. Gives us plenty of warning. The only thing we have to worry about is if it suddenly changes colour. It's supposed to blend from green to yellow to red, depending how far along Sev is. You're right though. The green is a bit pale." He pushed himself to his feet, then gently helped Severus to his feet, wrapping an arm around his waist. "We'd better go see Poppy."  
  
Snape gingerly detached himself. "_Past_ half the student body," he pointed out.  
  
"You're right. We'd better not look too close. Last thing we need at a time like this is a gossip mill." Remus steadied the other man on his feet as he winced, hand dropping reflexively to his belly. "But you tell me if you need help, do you hear me? Fuck the students."  
  
Snape laughed - actually _laughed_ - and Sirius stared, jaw dropping. The pair was calm, far too calm, so he took up the slack in panicking for them.  
  
"You're standing here talking when he's going to have a _baby_!" He sing-songed maddeningly. The animagus never looked more doglike in human form, bouncing small, frantic circles around the pair like an overexcited puppy. Reaching out, he grabbed Severus' arm. "Come on - "  
  
"Will you stop your infernal **_yapping?_** I'm beginning to think that your years as a dog have caused so much hindbrain mammalian seepage that you're no longer capable of cognitive thought!" Irritably, Snape pulled his arm free. "Black, you are a complete - "  
  
"A complete what?" Harry asked, hanging on the edge of his seat.   
  
Black mumbled and tried to pass it off as 'Words best not spoken in polite company'  
  
Harry didn't buy it. "Oh come on Sirius, you've probably called _him_ worse - and in my presence! _I've_ probably called him worse! What happened next?"   
  
The animagus sighed miserably. "I don't know."  
  
"What???"  
  
Sirius shrugged helplessly. It was horrid of him to leave Harry just hanging there, but he had no more tale to tell. The embarrassing truth was that in his harried fussing concern he'd tried to apparate without thinking and dumped himself square in the middle of Hogsmead as the wards activated and expelled him. Thankfully when Snape had pulled his arm free at the last moment he'd been outside the Apparate circle and had stayed safe in the castle.  
  
Harry sagged back into his seat. He could have at least **told** him the story ended so abruptly. "You're a bastard, Sirius."   
  
"Yup." 


	22. Chapter 21

It was hard sometimes, watching Remus and Severus together. He supposed he'd never been able to fully close that chapter of his life. He never knew if he'd be able to. But he persevered, taking it one day at a time, one step at a time.

"ASHIO!"

And avoiding blocks thrown at his head.

"Ac_ci_o" Snape remarked absently from the couch. The potions master was comfortably ensconced in its overstuffed depths with a periodical while Harry played with his daughter. "A hard 'ch'. Like cheese."

"Acheeo!" This time the block hit Harry in the back of the head.

"Good girl." Snape turned another page.

Harry rubbed the growing lump and winced, resigned. He was still unsure enough of his place with his daughter to discipline or refuse her anything, afraid on some subconscious level that all it would take would be one scowl and accusing finger and he would lose it all.

Which of course, left Remus to the part of Disciplinarian. Snape was completely and utterly unwilling to even make an attempt. The only discipline he ever saw as important was that of the mind. Sirius had smirked something about being a Slytherin, and Snape breeding for chaos and panic, a remark that drew merely a raised eyebrow and comments about breeding and puppies that Harry didn't really understand, but had the Animagus chuckling. It was odd, seeing his godfather more readily at ease with the potions master than Harry himself.

Remus had whistled innocently and sang something about fingers and wrapping under his breath. Not that it was really true. Wrapped, yes. But the only person Araminta really took the word "no" for an answer from was Snape. The only mandates she wouldn't try to circumvent were his. Then again, the words 'eat your food', 'sit up straight' or a thousand other stereotypical parental remonstrations never passed his lips in rebuke. Instead, they were conspiracies against hoi polloi, encouragements. Araminta was a lady of the house of Snape, and she knew it.

In fact, most times she could be the perfect lady. The epitome of dignity when the occasion warranted it, and very much like her birthing father. Behind the scenes, however, she was very much like her _other_ father would have been, if not for the Dursleys, poking about and running...the word was 'rampant', in all its glory and connotations.

"Araminta Snape, if you even attempt to throw that block at me, I will feed you to the snakes." Severus wasn't even looking up from his book, one long, pale hand reaching up to turn a page, the other gesturing idly at the tank under the Slytherin standard dominating one wall of the sitting room.

"Ssssssnakes!" Dropping her hefted block and running across the room, the toddler plastered her face up against the glass wall of the tank, blowing blubbery kisses and hissing happily. "Hissy hissy! Hissy hissy!" Marks on the glass were evident of earlier displays of affection.

Severus snorted, but there was a kiss of affection to it. "Children. So easily distracted."

Still rubbing his head, Harry rocked forward a little, sitting comfortably on the rug, hands dangling between his knees. "She's got a fair amount of wandless magic there," he remarked.

Snape scratched idly at his nose and turned another page, more leafing idly through the potions journal than really reading it. "All children do. It's much like flexibility – they only lose it when they start depending on a wand as a crutch." He snorted dismissively.

"Foolish wand-waving?" he couldn't resist it.

"Oh shut up Potter before I feed _you_ to the snakes."

Harry bit his lip and looked away before the snigger broke out openly. Their daughter was pressing pursed lips up against the glass of the tank, blowfishing her way across the surface, watched by two very bedraggled and put-upon serpents. Somewhere in the hall a clock chimed the hour. Remus would be back from teaching his classes in an hour or so.

"They won't hurt her will they?" the thought suddenly struck him.

"They're defanged. Completely harmless." Another idle turn of a page. "Besides, they know better than to hurt her, and _she_ knows better than to stick her hand in a snake tank. Unlike a certain student I recall."

"Papa! Papa! Snakies wants more mice!" The potions journal was finally put down as the toddler trotted back to them and Severus reached out to wipe a smudge off her nose.

"The **snakes** were fed shortly before Harry arrived. You know that, Araminta," he remonstrated gently. "You can't feed snakes too much, otherwise they explode. And then we would have a rather large mess to clean up."

Araminta pouted. "But papa, they said they're _hungry_."

"They can wait until supper like the rest of us. Care to explain that to them?" He picked up his journal again as his daughter darted back to the tank, hissing away.

Harry stared at him, eyebrow raised in the obvious question. Snape gave him much the same put-upon expression as the snakes. "She claims she can talk to the snakes, and that the snakes talk back." The two men watched their daughter for a while, hissing back and forth. "I don't know if she's a parselmouth, or just indulging in a toddler's fantasy. Personally I think it's the latter. "

"She could be though.." Harry knew he had a bit of a stupid smile on his face at the evidence that there was some part of him in there after all. "I mean, I am."

"There's always the possibility." Snape pulled his periodical up and raised an eyebrow at Harry over the cover, before nodding at the happily hissing toddler. "But those are Audno snakes. They're deaf."

"Oh..."

* * *

Eventually the potions journal began to droop in tired hands, black eyes beginning to lid with exhaustion. Harry caught the journal before it could hit the floor, the sudden motion jerking the other man awake.

"mm?"

"You ok?" Old habit twitched his fingers to brush aside a wayward lock of hair. Harry resisted the urge, then gave in to it. "You look tired."

"I _am_ tired." Severus rubbed a hand across his face, stained fingertips working at a crease between his eyebrows. "Poppy said it would be a while until I was fully healed." Brief irritation flashed across his features in a way Harry knew well. They may not have been lovers any more, but he could almost mouth along with the other man's thoughts. _if I'm going to sleep I will not do it like some decrepit grandmother napping over her knitting in front of the fire and therefore –_

"I'm going to bed." Those long, pale hands shook a little as he pushed himself to his feet, and Harry got to his own to help him, steadying the older man as he swayed. To his surprise, Severus didn't shake off the support, leaning gratefully into it as they made their way across the room. "Thank you, Harry. Araminta, please get out from under my feet, you are not a cat."

"Meeow!" the toddler giggled and scampered back to her blocks.

Severus' hands were trembling so badly with fatigue he could barely unfasten the soft loose shirt he wore. Harry watched him, feeling an awful pity, then reached forward, gently batting away those slim, usually strong hands and doing it for him. No argument, nothing but the angry chuff of a man chafing at his own frailty. There was no sensuality in the touch, no sex to it, it was the simple, impersonal feel of helping the infirm. Which was good, it meant he could fight the slight zing through his fingertips every time they skimmed across that pale skin, still his tongue against words that weren't wanted as he lifted that dark mane of hair over the neck of the nightshirt.

Was he still in love with Snape, or was he in love with a memory? Was the love of a lover or the love of an ex-lover? The love of a parent, the love of a child? Or was it simply just the love of a friend? There were thousands of different types of love, and he was just beginning to discover them.

His hands stilled as he helped Snape pull the blankets over himself, gaining his first proper look at the room.

It hadn't really changed.

Oh there were a few touches here and there – just enough to remind him that another man slept here now. He found himself staring at the side of the bed that so long ago was marked as 'his', knowing it wasn't anymore. It felt....unreal. A well-known place suddenly turned unfamiliar. Not his glass on the smooth dark surface of the bedside table. Not his scent on the sheets.

He resisted the sudden urge to beat the pillow away from the smooth plump rectangle it was into his own bunched ball of preference.

"Harry?" he realised Snape was watching him, wary, and he let go of the blanket.

"I'll be in the sitting room, if you need anything." And he left the room, fled before it overwhelmed him.

* * *

Time. He just needed time. And he had it, he should take it. Learn over again. Set himself to rights.

His hands jumbled over a pile of blocks on the floor, forming odd geometric shapes, then destroying them again. Time. All he needed. Time.

"Daddy-Harry…." Araminta sidled into his view, face bearing that coy expression all little children get when they're about to zero in on an easy mark and ask something they know they shouldn't. "Can you take me broom-riding?"

His grip on the blocks eased a little, pushing a stray strand of hair from his eyes. "Not tonight, it's too dark, 'minta. Tomorrow, ok?"

Tiny features turned into a scowl that most of Hogwarts had learned to fear. "I want to go ride my broom **now.**"

"It's too _ dark_, Araminta." Was that his voice? Some part of him wondered crazily. "I will take you riding tomorrow. **If** you behave." She started to whine, but somehow he managed to stay firm. "**Tomorrow.**"

"Congratulations. You've just learned how to say 'no.' " He looked up, a little startled. The werewolf was standing in the doorway, watching them.

"Remus..." he still felt a little stilted around the other man, the feeling hammered harder by the squeal of delight Araminta gave, launching herself at him, thoughts of brooms and whines forgotten. Her preference was more than evident.

"How was class?" it was stiff, artificial, and he knew it.

"Oh, the usual. Boggarts and Grindylows and Kappas, oh my!" the werewolf bounced Araminta up in the air as she squealed in delight, then sat himself down on a chair, the toddler perched in his lap.

"Snakies want food, but papa said they can wait until dinner," Araminta informed him importantly.

"Ahh," Remus nodded sagely. "So I better not go near the tank or they'll gobble me up!"

"Heee, silly Remuu." Araminta giggled and patted his knee. "Daddy-Harry put Papa to bed, he's sleeping, want me to go wake him up?"

"No, let him sleep. You know how grumpy he gets if you wake him up." Remus affected a look of mock-horror. "I'm not that brave!" Setting the little girl down on the floor, with a hug, he patted her backside gently, pushing her towards her toys. "Why don't you play with your blocks for a little while, while Harry and I have a talk?"

"mmmokay."

Harry felt his back stiffen, fingers clenching around the blocks in his hands. Remus was _ looking_ at him, the gaze making his cheeks flush and gut clench without any conscious intervention from the mind.

"Harry..."

He forced himself to look up, to meet the other man's eyes, and almost physically jerked in startlement at the look in them. Not condemning, not imperious, hesitant, worried, even. Sorrowful...

Remus' voice was soft. "I realised I never apologised to you."

Harry's brow wrinkled. "Yes you did..." it was the olive branch that had allowed stilted conversation rather than attempting to kill each other for the sake of ego.

"Not specifically, not for what I said outside the infirmary. I'd like to do that now. I'm sorry." He said it without preamble or pride. "I'm sorry for what I said, about the cup- for what I said. I shouldn't have said it that way. Not to anyone. Especially not to you."

The Auror didn't look up, head bowed, hands idly shifting the blocks around as his daughter waved some sort of figurine on a broom under his nose.

"Harry?"

"I'm sorry, Remus. I'm just not that good at accepting apologies, you know?"

Remus sagged a little sadly at this. "You can't forgive me?"

"I can! I can, I do, I mean. Merlin knows we both said a lot of things. I don't think either of us was that sane at the time. I just...." He blew a bang out of his face with an embarrassed grin. "I just never know what to say in situations like this."

Remus smiled back. "I've never learned quite how to take apologies either."

They sat there in silence for a moment, both of them watching the toddler zooming the little toy broom through the air.

Once again it was the werewolf who broke it. "Sirius tells me you've been finding out about Severus' pregnancy," it was more an icebreaker than any real conversation.

"Yeah..." a smile quirked the edge of Harry's mouth. "Did he really get thrown out into Hogsmeade?"

Remus laughed. "Flat on his backside in the middle of the square. Which is probably a good thing, I think Sev was ready to make good on his promise to punt him off the astronomy tower."

Harry laughed with him, but it was mostly mechanical, mind working and steeling itself to the next question.

"Remus...You were there. Can you tell me what happened next? Please?"

Instantly the laughter died, an odd evasiveness taking its place. "I don't think it's right..."

"It's not right for me to know how my daughter was born?" Harry gestured to the toddler, now sprawled on her back and pushing the broom around with her feet. "I've missed so much of her life, Remus. All I have are other people's memories." Bitterness tinged his tone. "That's all I have. Don't keep that from me too."

Torn, Lupin chewed the inside of his cheek, hand fidgeting with his sleeve. "Harry." He decided to be blunt. "It won't be what you want to hear. It might upset you - "

The Auror met his eyes evenly, and Remus realised once more that it was a man he was speaking to. Not a child. A _man_.

"You're right. It might. But I still want to know."

Old friends or no, some private, secret part of Remus was glad that Sirius had tripped the wards. He had been panicking too much - and like everything else the animagus displayed, it had the tendency to be overwhelming and infectious.

Remus himself was cool, calm and collected. Of course he was. Not panicking in the slightest. And his hands were most definitely _not_ shaking a little, and that feeling twisting deep inside his stomach had nothing to do with fear.

He clasped his hands over each other and rubbed them together a little, ostensibly to ward away the chill, despite the warmth of the air. Nothing to worry about. Happened all the time, well with women. Millions of humans had been born without a concern. He was just overreacting, that was all. And his hands were cold.

After a brief examination, Severus had emerged from the infirmary, much to the werewolf's surprise. The old witch didn't see a reason to break out the boiling water and clean sheets yet - in fact, she knew from old experiences that time limited in the infirmary being poked and prodded would be less stressful to the wizard, and suggested he found somewhere comfortable to relax. The real drama wouldn't start for a while by her reckoning, and there was no reason to start mother henning and 'harassing' the man.

Severus chose the rose garden. Rather quixotic for the potion master's tastes, but it was quiet, and above all nice and private. Remus shepherded him carefully out there, nervous hands reaching perhaps a little too much to help, finally twitching and closing over one another as Snape gingerly settled himself on a bench, air hissing a little from his teeth as his currently most tender parts met the hard surface, then again as he got up from the rapidly unbearable position.

Severus paced about for a few minutes, finally settling down in a completely undignified, but at least marginally comfortable half-kneel, half-squat right there on the grass. Bugger dignity. His face twitched a little as various pains made themselves felt, his belly cramping and little curlicues twinged up his spine and along his legs.

Remus fussed and fluffed, finally crouching down beside him. "Are you all right?"

"I'm in labour, Lupin. What do you expect?" Pain made his words sharp, and with a muffled groan of defeat the potions master gracelessly toppled forwards until his nose hit the grass, backside in the air, legs half curled underneath him. Ridiculous, but at least it worked at easing some incipient pressure deep inside. Arms wrapped around his midriff, he rubbed his cheek a little against the cool grass, letting out some sort of completely humiliating fluffy sound as Remus' hands got to work on the small of his back.

The werewolf hesitated for a moment, then gently pressed his lips to the back of the other man's neck. Severus wasn't a very tactile man and he was never quite sure how his gestures would be accepted. His heart ached as the muscles under his hands tightened again with the pain of another contraction and he wished there was something, anything he could do to take it away.

Poppy had laughed, but not-laughed at concerns of any pain-relieving potions would affect the baby during delivery. Women had been giving birth aided by potions and charms for centuries, and in that respect Severus really wasn't any different….if not for Voldemort.

The dark lord had had a penchant for tormenting his followers. The Cruiciatus was a favourite, and while an extended time under the curse could cause insanity, long term exposure worked away at the nerves and pain receptors of the body. Any potion strong enough to work at the pain of giving birth would be strong enough to harm the baby as well.

Crouching behind the other man, gently stretching his body along the length of curved back, Remus let his hands slip under and tangle with those long fingered hands curled around the other man's belly. "I'm here," he said simply.

Severus arched up a little into his embrace, the fingers tangled with his squeezing a little tighter. "I know."

Time seemed to slow and freeze as they curled together, then gradually melt again, seconds slipping past them, minutes, hours, who knew, who cared. No further words were said between the two - they rarely seemed to need them.

The werewolf felt another contraction lift and harden the belly under their interlaced fingers and gently returned the grip against his fingers, murmuring soothing, nonsensical words into the other man's ear, feeling his lover's breath hitch unevenly under his cheek as they rode it out together.

It peaked, tightened, then slowly ebbed away, leaving the potions master almost boneless with relief in his embrace.

"I have something…to give you…" control was fought for and won with each word, normal tones somehow vaguely sacrilegious in the soft rose-scented air. "Let me up."

Remus leaned back, gently pulling his lover with him, taking his weight, supporting it, until the other man was seated between his splayed legs. Hands resting on the swollen belly, he watched as stained fingers reached inside the sleeve of a robe, carefully controlled so that only the barest tremor showed, and withdrew a carefully bound collection of paper.

Pressing the parchments into his hands, Severus slowly leaned forward again, taking any comfortable position he could find as the werewolf undid the knot binding the bundle of papers.

They were blank.

He shot a confused look at his lover, then shuffled them a little in his hands. Official seals flickered past his eyes, then gradually words began to emerge on a single sheet. Spelled only to be readable by his eyes. A listing of documents.

Parchment spilled across the grass from his shaking grasp as he realised the magnitude of what he held in his hands. Last will and testament. Personal papers, all written in truth-telling ink, and spelled only to be readable on his lovers death. Papers naming his daughter's father, if the other man could even be bothered to acknowledge the fact. And another, binding in soul's blood with the strongest charms in existence naming Remus as her guardian, in perpetuity, with all the power of the House of Snape and most ancient spells of binding behind it. It was a decree that couldn't be broken. Not even by the ministry itself.

Remus was staggered. He knew his lover was careful to and beyond the point of abject paranoia, but this….

"I can't accept this!" the words blurted out of his mouth without any conscious intervention from his brain. Everything Severus owned was placed in his hands. He jerked to his feet, like a marionette in the hands of a madman, pacing the rose garden. "I can't take this Severus!"

"You can, and you will." The words were muffled, but distinct. "If I should die during childbirth – "

"Don't say that! You're not going to die!" panic pushed his words, the unspoken fear between them finally vocalised. "You're not!"

"- If I die, I ask for you to bring up my daughter." His tone gentled. " I trust you, Remus. You love her already, and she isn't even born yet. You won't coddle her, or hide her from things she needs to know. Nor will you push her to things she should not know. You will protect her, and support her in whatever her life may bring…" his voice scattered a little at that last, the possibility of never even seeing his own child etching its own pain, then firmed once more with resolve. "If I do die, then I know that at least my daughter will be cared for and loved."

"Don't - "

Turning his head a little to the side, Severus fixed the other man with a slant-eyed look. "Don't what, precisely? Don't tell the truth? Remus, I am about to give birth. Bring forth offspring of dubious parentage. Pop, as one student so delicately put it. It's a talent I inherited from my father, Aramanthus Snape who _died_ giving birth to _me_." There was no point prettying it up. "There is a very real chance that I may follow in his footsteps and I will be **damned** to hell before I –" The words were cut off as Snape _yelped_. Not the usual wince, or hiss of pain that Remus had come to expect here and there from contractions, but a yelp that sounded almost comical.

"Severus?" Remus got down beside him on all fours, peering into the other man's face, feeling fear begin an urgent flutter at the base of his ribs. "Severus?"

The other man reached up and gripped his forearm, the bottom of his robes already beginning to darken with newly broken waters. "Poppy. _Now._"

"We got to the infirmary pretty fast – Dumbledore had modified the wards somehow for us, allowing limited apparition within the grounds themselves, and – Harry?"

The Auror's face had gone a horrible grey colour. "I-I have to go." He pushed himself to his feet, the old, hatefully familiar feeling creeping back – had it ever really left? "I have to –"

"Harry, _no._" Remus' hands were on his arms, but they didn't pin him to the seat half as much as those worried golden eyes. "Listen to me Harry. Please. That was then, this is now. You weren't there then, Severus asked me. He knew there was a chance he could die, and he wanted his child to be taken care of. And not just me, those papers marked Sirius as well. He asked _Sirius_, do you have any idea how much it cost his pride back then to ask _Sirius Black_ to raise his only child? Sirius was the only link we had to your family, to _you_ and Severus wanted his daughter to have that. _Your_ daughter." His voice softened. "_Your_ daughter. Not mine. _Yours._"

The hands on his arms started to tremble a little, and as he looked into the other man's eyes, Harry saw the same shadowed fear he knew haunted his own, even now. The fear of losing his daughter, his family, if not by blood, then by love.

Their hands shifted, turned, and suddenly Remus' hands weren't holding him down anymore, their fingers were interlaced, gripping tight and now it was Harry who was comforting the other man.

"You were scared, weren't you?" he asked wonderingly. "That's why you said what you did. You were _scared._"

"Terrified." Remus' voice was dry, throat making an audible click as he swallowed. "More even than you. You're her father. And I…I'm nothing. No one. I have no claim, no right, nothing."

"Don't say that!" He said it with an intensity that frightened himself. "Don't say that, don't even **think** that, Remus. You were there for Severus when I wasn't. You were there when she was born. You heard her first word, you saw her take her first step. _You_ are her family. All I did was father her. _I_ have nothing. Nothing here but a fact of happy accident that I happened to be the one that donated sperm. You have her. You have Severus, then I came back and you didn't have to accept me into your family. But you did. How can you expect me to do any less?

"How could I not??" Remus jerked and tried to pull away. "You're her father!"

Harry didn't let go, tightening the grip on the fingers interlaced with his own, pulling their palms closer together. "And you're her Remuu. I'm her Daddy, but what does that mean to her? It's just a word, and I don't think she even understands the meaning of it. The meaning, the _feelings_ tied up with the word 'daddy' are already in her heart. And she calls them Remuu."

"Do so know what daddy means." A little ball of toddler squirmed her way between them. "Daddy-Harry is daddy because he helped Papa make me in his tummy. And Remuu is my Remuu because me and papa love him. So Remuu is my daddy and Harry is my daddy, and Papa is my Papa." And she sat back in Harry's lap, issue resolved, smug with her plethora of parents while the laughter of her family rained around her.

If only others had been so easy to convince.

* * *

"Watch me Daddy-Harry! I'm flying! I'm flying!"

"I'm watching sweetheart." Like a hawk. It was a child's broom, and spelled so that it wouldn't rise any higher than two feet, but he still fussed. He couldn't imagine what Severus would say if their daughter repeated Neville's first time airborne.

The potions master and Remus had elected to stay indoors, leaving the pair alone. It was 'Harry time' – they'd all agreed that the Auror would spend some time alone with his daughter, letting them get to know each other without the presence of others interfering. And it had the added bonus of allowing the other two men some private time of their own.

Araminta wobbled a little on the broom, then tightened her grip a little, rising it a little higher. Delighted laughter rippled across the air as she pushed it forward, then back, a light breeze stirring her hair as she turned a laborious corner. "I'm flying, Daddy-Harry!"

"I'm watching!" for the first time he believed that adage about having kids made you feel like one. He remembered his first time on a broom, the feel of the wind in his hair the ultimate, _crazy _completely unmuggle realisation that he was flying, really flying, not sitting in a plane staring remotely at the clouds but flying among them, close enough to touch.

Maybe that memory was what distracted him.

"Look daddy-Harry! Owllllll!!" And indeed, a mail owl was making its way across the field, wings sagging a little under the weight of a gigantic parcel. With a wild laugh the toddler chased it as it flew over them, pushing her little broom as fast as it would go (and not very fast at that to tell the truth)

She wasn't that very far away from her father – a bare ten metres at most, but it felt like a thousand miles when the owl finally drooped and dropped under the weight of the parcel, plummeting towards the laughing toddler.

With a scream, laughter turned to blind panic as the little girl threw her hands up to protect her face. The broom spun crazily around for a moment, both at the loss of guidance and sudden pummelling by owl, then finally dumped her onto the grass with a soft **thud.**

It happened in a blink of an eye and Harry swore his heart stopped beating.

"_ARAMINTA!"_

She wasn't hurt. She couldn't be hurt. It was just a little fall, just a little fall she wasn't hurt she couldn't be hurt…

But the body he turned over in frantic hands was terrifyingly silent and still, and for an instant he had the horrific thought that she was dead…

Then the chest under his hand dragged in a deep breath…and let it out in an ear-splitting wail of tears.

It was the sweetest sound he'd ever heard.

"Shh baby, shh sweetheart, daddy's here, it's ok, it's all right, you're not hurt, it's ok…" even as the words tumbled from his lips his hands were gently touching, examining, reassuring himself of their truth. Comforted, he wrapped both arms around his daughter and held her tight to his chest, rocking back and forth on his knees. "Shh, it's ok, it's ok…."

But like all small children when they were hurt or injured, she would not be consoled by him. She wanted her

"PAPA!!!" She was screaming now, tiny hands clinging to him even as she wailed for another, utterly beside herself with fear that only one thing was on her mind – to get to her Papa, to wrap herself up in his arms and know that he could keep the world away from her and never let it hurt her.

Holding tightly, Harry pushed himself to his feet, a little frightened by the intensity of her tears. Leaving broom and battered owl behind, he made his way to the castle, muttering endless reassurances, hands ghosting from stroking his daughter's back, to her hair, then back again, feeling something undefinable gnaw at his chest. Fear, he finally realised. Abating fear from the fall, rising fear of what Severus would say, a crazy mental image of walking through the castle doors and finding the potion's master standing there, arms folded, foot tapping, voice the echoing boom of some giant figure. **_"What have you done to my daughter??"_**

But when he shouldered his way though the doors, crying child nestled to his chest there was nothing there but portraits.

Pressing his lips to his daughter's forehead, Harry made his way across the entrance hall and jumped, a little scream of his own nearly breaking loose from frazzled nerves as a voice screeched at him across the room.

"HARRY POTTER WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO THAT CHILD??"

Araminta jumped in his arms, wails gaining even more volume as he turned to see Professor Sinistra stalking across the flagstones towards him from the Great Hall. _Not now, please not now… _he hurried down the stairs leading to Severus' rooms and safety, hoping to get away from the witch before she started in on him. There were those in the castle who avoided him, and there were those that _he_ avoided. And Sinestra was one of the worst. In her eyes he had no place here, no place with his daughter, no place anywhere Severus, or indeed within a hundred kilometres of the school itself. As she went to great pains to tell him at every given opportunity.

In the old days he supposed he would have met the confrontation, stood up for himself. But now it was easier just to run. Besides, there was no way he could even pretend to lay claim to any semblance of innocence with what she accused him of.

"POTTER!" her voice followed him like a Beansidhe wail as he bolted down the remainder of the stairs, her feet following fast behind him. Insanely, he felt a bubble of laughter well up inside him. A fully grown man with a wailing toddler fleeing an elderly woman – it felt like some demented plot from _The Brittas Empire,_ or _Mister Bean_ or any of the other muggle comedy shows he used to peer through the crack in the kitchen door and watch as a child, drawn by Dudley's uproarious laughter.

Haring along the short corridor he took a turn rapidly, feeling his daughter press her face into his collarbone, tiny hands gripping at the nape of his neck, catching hold of the short hairs there and pulling them painfully. And Sinistra was _still_ hounding him!

And then he saw one of the most beautiful things he'd seen all day. Severus Snape himself, limping rapidly along the long corridor to meet them, drawn by some parental instinct to his daughter's cries.

Araminta wailed even louder, if that was possible, leaning out of his grasp, into her papa's, twining her arms around his neck and clutching tight enough to strangle.

"What happened?" Severus was already clutching his daughter tightly, heart thudding in his chest, hands sliding over her, checking for injury. He had faced some of the most horrific things of his generation, but the one thing that terrified him beyond compare was a scream from his own child. Snuggled safely in his arms, her wails slowly eased to damp sniffles.

"An owl knocked her off her broom – "

"An OWL?" Sinistra broke in, pinched features painted with fury. "A likely story. And pray tell Mister Potter how did an _owl_ get close enough to Araminta to knock her off her broom? I thought that even _you_ would know better than to take a two year old on a fully functional broom! She's barely old enough for a training broom! Such an stupid, irresponsible – "

"Was she hurt?" Much to the witch's disappointment, Severus didn't seem interested in laying the blame. He was far more concerned with his daughter's well-being, and the rantings of his fellow professor had been resigned to little more than background noise.

"She only fell a little way," Harry gabbled hastily. "I think she's more scared than anything else – "

"Only by pure blind chance!" Sinistra broke in again. "Severus I don't know why you let this…this…" she sputtered furiously "anywhere _near_ your daughter! He can't even take care of her properly! He abandoned you, and all rights to be father when you were pregnant, and now – "

Severus paused in his examination of his daughter and stared at the woman with frosty eyes. "Shut up, Sinistra."

The astronomy mistress turned a bright, beet-red that didn't suit her at all. "Severus! I was merely – "

"I will repeat myself since you seem incapable of comprehending simple instructions. Shut up."

"Well!" she seemed on the verge of saying more, but wisely decided against it, gathering her robes around her with indignant motions. "Well!" Much to her chagrin, Snape ignored her completely, turning his attention back to his daughter. She turned her fury back to Harry instead.

"You may have Severus fooled, _Mister Potter_" venom dripped from every word. "But there are a great many of us, staff and students alike that will not stand by and idly let you take advantage of an injured man. If we had our way – "

"**_Sinistra_****_ -_**" for once in his life, Severus Snape was completely lost for further words – not at the display of vitriol, for he had seen plenty of _that_ in his life – but at the fact that it was directed in defence of _him._

"Severus." A sharp biting nod of her head, then Sinistra was gone, the potion master's face crafting an oddly contemplative look as he watched the woman stalk down the hall, heeled boots clipping the stone floors angrily. Then it snarled into an anger of his own. One hand tightened a little around his daughter's waist, the other gripping his cane hard as he took a step after the retreating witch.

Harry caught his shoulder. "Don't." The Auror said quietly. "It's not worth it."

Once again, Severus could only gape. Harry Potter, backing down from a confrontation? Unthinkable. Impossible. It was an innate bullish Gryffindor trait the other man had in spades.

Harry looked away, but the other man was too damn intuitive. "This isn't the first time this has happened, is it?"

He didn't answer.

"How long has this been going on?" Severus' eyes narrowed as he saw the other man begin to fidget.

"It's nothing, really...I mean, they're right, in a way. Remus has said a lot worse - "

"Remus had his reasons, knew the entire story and was directly involved." Snape cut him off.

"Where is Remus anyway?" he tried desperately to change the subject.

"Asleep. Don't avoid the issue." Damn.

"They're just words, Sev." Harry said softly. "Just stupid words from stupid people. Remember? You told me once that the only people who can turn on you are the ones that never really knew you in the first place."

At that, Snape had to look away. He had done his own share of turning. As had they all. He stared for a long time at the toddler sitting in his lap, leaning against his chest, quietly sucking her thumb. He had dared to think he'd known enough of Harry to bear his child – yet at the same time had known little enough to think he would abandon that child.

But that was his fault. His mistake, and he had the right to make that. The idea of others doing the same infuriated him. Infuriated was the word, it sent a simmering fury deep in his belly. How _dare_ they? Their golden boy, their hero, their saviour, what they were feeling wasn't anything on Snape's behalf, it was a way to lash out at an icon tarnished, a hero who had turned out to be human. And given the fact that Harry was trying, _really_ trying - that was intolerable.

"Severus?" A hand was waving back and forth in front of his face. Abruptly he snapped back to himself and with a little help, got to his feet.

"Come inside and have a shower," he said softly. "You smell. And Araminta needs a bath."

* * *

Dinner in the great hall. Always a grand affair. But this time, as Albus Dumbledore rose to give his nightly speech, a certain potions master rose and took his place.

A few titters rose up in the hall at the look of sheer befuddlement on the Headmaster's face, the matching looks on other staff members, a babble of voices rising and falling in the curious mutter of over a thousand students. Severus merely stood there throughout it, waiting, watching.

After a while he began to gradually tap his cane against the stone floor.

Silence fell, faces of staff and students alike staring at him. Even Araminta was silent, baby-fork dangling forgotten from her hand, the half-scooped portion of mashed potato she had been about to fling at Hooch slowly sliding off the surface to drip back onto her plate.

Snape let the silence rest a little longer, then straightened, no longer looking the frail, injured man they'd come to see him as of late, but once more the tall, dark, forbidding alchemist that made students tremble in fear.

"It has come to my attention of late," his voice rang clear across the hall, "that there are those among you who do not approve of Harry Potter's relationship with my daughter."

Now the silence _was_ broken as Harry dropped his fork and resisted burying his face in his hands.

"Your approval is not required. Nor is it even wanted. This is _our_ family. _Our_ life, not yours." The anger was building inside him again at the faces before him, and he rode it, using it to fuel his words.

"Concern itself is an emotion I am willing to concede. But I will not tolerate those who wear false faces to excuse their anger at their own inability to judge human nature!

"We are not perfect, we are not godly - that is something I have been attempting to tell you about Mister Potter for _years_. And now you find that it is true, you seem all too eager to leap to the defence of the poor, misjudged professor in order to pander to your sick little fantasies." His grip tightened on the head of his cane, and he stomped the tip down on the flagstones of the hall with a crack that made the entire school jump.

"I will not be the engine for your witch hunt!" He was furious, truly furious, more furious than anyone could ever recall him being. Almost a heartbeat away from screaming obscenities at the collection of vapid, gossiping little toads. Poking, prying, he was an intensely private man, and the endless meddling in his affairs by brainless 'well meaning' idiots had finally pushed him over the edge.

"Mister Potter, despite what your malicious, addled little brains would love to assume did _not_ 'knock me up' then abandon me." His voice was a whip, and he lashed out at the assembly with it. "He was not aware of my condition. Neither was I, until my second month, by which time Potter was deep in his training and completely unreachable, so I took the path _I_ best saw fit. Our relationship may have ended, but I will not tolerate any further attempts to isolate him or drive him away from _his_ daughter!"

There. He'd said it. And the gasp from the school almost pushed him from his feet. Beside him, Harry rocked with the words. Saying he was a father was one thing. Openly admitting to everyone in earshot that Araminta was his _daughter_ was somehow so much more. Intimated so much more than a clinical relationship by blood...he couldn't describe it. The words the phrasing, just.... His eyes closed against happy tears and he almost missed what Severus said next.

" - assure you I have 'tolerated' your spiteful little demonstrations only out of sheer ignorance of the fact. That ignorance no longer exists and I will not _stand_ for your meddling in affairs that DO NOT CONCERN YOU!" the last was a bellow that rocked the very stones.

It also made damn sure that everyone knew Severus Snape was **back.**


	23. Chapter 22

The mood in the school changed dramatically after Snape's speech. No one likes to admit they were wrong, and Hogwarts was no exception. No one had outright apologised, per se, they had opted for the easier and less ego-destroying manner of anonymous gifts, or tentative smiles, easing up the dark cloud of disapproval that had chased them about. For the first time ever, Trelawny had actually served him a prediction that didn't involve maiming, illness or actual death.....and _that _particular little gem was rather disconcerting in itself. Not all were swayed, but not everyone would ever be, and it was enough for Harry.   
  
Madam Hooch was the exception to the rule.   
  
Harry was relaxing against a parapet, staring out again across the expanse of the quidditch pitch to the forbidden forest, lit golden by the dying sun when she caught him.   
  
Caught wasn't really the word, it insinuated skulking or sneaking, some sort of subterfuge at any rate. The truth was that she just walked up to him, bold as brass, rounded riding heels making an odd little noise against the flagstones. "Potter."   
  
The Auror eyed her warily. To tell the truth, given reactions of some of the other staff he had been avoiding her. He knew (even if Severus didn't) that she was rather protective of the potions master. And Harry didn't think he'd walk too well with a broom wedged up his back passage.   
  
"Madame Hooch," he said politely, surreptitiously shifting so that his backside was against a stone wall.   
  
She had a small, non-descript box in her hands. "I was going to leave this for you in your quarters," she weighed it carefully in her hands, "But then I thought you may not know what it was, growing up with those muggles of yours."   
  
Harry stared at the small stone jar in the box. "It's a pensieve."   
  
Hooch nodded, briefly. "Actually, it's a celebratory." At the confused look the auror gave her she elaborated. "It's a gift among the wizarding world. Part of what Severus would no doubt term 'ritual humiliation." A smile quirked her lips and Harry found himself tentatively returning it. "Usually to mark a momentous event in a young wizard or witch's life. This one is young Araminta's birth."   
  
"Both Poppy and I contributed," she continued as Harry stared hungrily at the bowl, not even daring to reach for it. "And Minerva, Remus, Severus himself, of course, Albus…It's not supposed to be opened until her eighteenth birthday, but, well…" again that little quirky half-smile and she thrust it at him, the moment passed, businesslike once more. "Girl needs her father, Potter. _Father's_," she corrected herself. "You weren't there for them then, but you can be now. Enjoy." Then she turned about and left Harry clutching the pensieve, mouth gaping a little in astonishment.

* * *

He didn't get to view the pensieve right away. The outside world intruded unpleasantly into his life. He'd almost forgotten that there was a world outside Hogwarts and the muddle his life had been of late.   
  
There was another owl waiting for him in his quarters. Another note from the ministry, calling him back Over the past few weeks they had gone from gentle reminders to less polite almost-demands that he go back to active duty. His compassionate leave was long gone, as well as his service leave. It was time to re-enter the world of the Aurors.   
  
He wasn't sure that he wanted to go back.   
  
Once he would have said it was his life. His job. Back then, the two were interchangeable. And the death eater attacks hadn't stopped. Things were quiet, they were calm, too calm, they had been for some time. Some thought that it was over. That the shadow was finally gone.   
  
Harry wasn't one of them. He could _feel_ them, still out there. Watching. Waiting.   
  
He ran a hand through his hair, the tips of his fingers rubbing idly at his scalp as he sagged down on a couch. Go or stay? Duty warred with a delightfully selfish desire to stay at Hogwarts, to hell with the world. He was the best Auror there was, he was under no illusions to his skill, it was simply a fact. He should fight the darkness, protect people.   
  
But he was a father now. He had a family. One he barely knew, one he was just getting to know, and he wanted nothing more than to just stay at Hogwarts, stay with his family, catch up on so many lost years and just….be with them. There were a thousand little delightful things he'd never realised he could do. Birthdays. Flying lessons. Telling her what little he knew about his own parents. Even simply sitting down to breakfast had become a new and crazily wondrous thing. And he wanted so much more. He'd been parched of a family for so long that he wanted to plunge into it, to drown himself.   
  
One hand toyed with the slip of parchment, fingers absently petting the head of the waiting owl as it butted his hand with its head, hooting softly. The darkening shadows in his unlit quarters seemed to grow with his pensive mood, swallowing everything in their path.   
  
He could resign. It was rare – most people who were Aurors were Aurors for life, but it did happen. There were those that left. Invalided out, or just resigned. He could do it. It wouldn't be easy, but he could.   
  
He still wouldn't be free. The knowledge, his training was too dangerous, too powerful to have in the hands of just a normal wizard. He would be watched. There would be checks, in case he went rogue. Memory charms were dodgy at best, but it was an idea that he weighed seriously. A wrong word, the simple slip of a tongue could destroy his mind irreparably – but the alternative also held its risks.   
  
Knowledge intact, he would be watched. His daughter would be watched. Snape would be watched. Snape, the Death Eater. Servant of Lord Voldemort. The ministry had long memories, and Aurors weren't immune to grudges.   
  
It's a vile, tasteless thing, but sometimes you must acknowledge humanity. The whole of humanity, its depravity and fangs as well as its glory and saints.   
  
Not too long ago he would have 'thought like a parent.' Continued his job. Walked away. Protected his daughter, his ex lover, his family. Gone out, left them alone, gone to protect their world. **Made** a world for his daughter to grow up in.   
  
But now, he _was_ thinking like a parent. And it wasn't romantic. He was thinking like a father who desperately wanted to see his daughter grow up into the beautiful woman he knew she'd become. To selfishly drink in every second of her life, to see it all, to love her for every second. There had been one attack, there could be another, and he was frightened – no, he admitted honestly, he was _terrified_ that there **would** be another. That they would be killed, or worse….and he wouldn't be there to protect them.   
  
Fudge could go pack it, he decided with a guilty sort of glee. And then laughed as the phrase reminded him of a delightfully obscene insult the muggles used when he was a child.   
  
But even he recognised that sudden urge to be childish, ill-thought and impulsive. There were consequences. Always consequences. He'd learned that the hard way. And he'd learned that where his family was concerned he had to think - _really_ think, and weigh his actions. His world didn't revolve around himself any more.   
  
Some might have said he was growing up.   
  
Gathering the matter, he put it to one side of his mind. It was urgent, but not immediate. He could delay a few more days yet, obfuscation always worked well when you had as free a reign as the Unspeakables did, especially when wrapped in the most pompous language possible.   
  
Right now he wanted to be with his family.   
  
Cupping the pensieve in his hands, he hesitated for a moment, then stroked his fingers gently over the surface.   
  
News is an entity in its own right. It breeds, it morphs, but most importantly, it _moves_, with a speed faster than any achieved by muggle or wizard.   
  
Which is why, even though Remus and Snape apparated straight to the infirmary itself Rolanda Hooch sailed through the door before Poppy had even finished getting the labouring wizard settled into a bed.   
  
Severus gifted her with the finest glare possible. Given the circumstances, it was rather an impressive effort. "What the hell are you doing here?"   
  
"Rolanda trained as a midwife, Severus." Poppy informed him calmly. "And the thing about being a nurse in a school full of children is that you don't have much call to use your obstetric skills." To her credit, the Quidditch coach didn't make a single crack at Snape, simply settling down to the job at hand.   
  
Severus resisted the irrational urge to start biting people as they pulled off his oversized robes, making him move out of his marginally less painful little curl. Decidedly unpleasant things were happening deep inside him, and he desperately wanted nothing more than to lie down and huddle into a little ball until it all went away.   
  
And above all, he was afraid.   
  
"There we go…" there was some satisfaction in Hooch's voice. "Just a little longer now Severus. The little one's almost ready to start coming out now…."   
  
"**_Start??_**" Severus was beginning to understand the circumstances that resulted in the creation of the phrase 'oh, _shit_.' Quite calmly and logically he knew that labour took some time, and that there would be some pain. And had been prepared to deal with that. He had also been a bloody idiot because now that his insides were merrily mincing themselves to a lively tune and he was about to attempt shoving a living being out of somewhere it really had no business being, logic and calm were currently well over the horizon of his mental mindset and accelerating fast.   
  
Behind him, unseen, non-existent at this moment in time, Harry turned green. Oh god, Hermione had been right about how his daughter had been born.   
  
Poppy debated ordering Remus out of the room, but stayed the words in her throat as the werewolf kneeled down beside the bed and laid a single, simple hand against the potion master's chest.   
  
"I'm here, Severus. I won't leave you."   
  
The rising panic seemed to melt out of Severus' features at the touch, hand reaching out to wrap around one waiting for him. The charms surrounding the bed showed a visible calming, and the simply joined hands resting on the side of the bed made it evident that what Snape needed more than anything during labour was someone to be there for _him._   
  
A small smile touched her lips. In all the hurry they'd forgotten that simple little fact. Luckily Remus hadn't.

* * *

  
  
The rest of the world seemed to vanish for Harry as things progressed. People moved around him, Poppy, Hooch, but he would be hard pressed to tell who was who, relegated to mere shadowy forms absently sculling through his perception. They didn't exist, not really. No one did.   
  
Just Severus.   
  
Sweat plastered his hair to his head and shoulders, teeth bared in an almost animalistic growl, facing the hardest challenge of his life, the potions master had never looked more magnificent. Long, thin fingers knotted and crushed against Remus' supporting grasp as he curled on his side, clutching their joined hands to his chest.   
  
He was giving birth. To Harry's daughter.   
  
All of a sudden Potter couldn't even remember what had ended their relationship in the first place.   
  
The contraction passed, leaving the potions master gasping, head hanging, ropes of greasy, sweat-slimed hair glued to his cheek. Reaching out, Remus gently cupped the back of his head in one hand, bringing their foreheads together, uncaring of the sweat, whispering soft, gentle words of encouragement, so low as to be almost beyond the threshold of hearing. Raising their tangled fingers between them, he gently pressed a kiss to the back of the other man's hand.   
  
And Harry's heart broke all over again.   
  
But somehow, this time it was a good break. It didn't fester. It didn't burn. All it did was hurt, but a different hurt, something he wanted but knew he couldn't have, and accepted. The most important time in his ex-lover's life. The birth of his child. He hadn't been there, but Remus had been. Loving, gentle Remus, and that meant Severus wasn't alone.   
  
Poppy looked up briefly from her ministrations, exchanging a small smile with Hooch at the scene she saw. The labour was hard, to be honest, but not dangerously so. True, Snape was a little older than the mediwitch would have liked for his first born child, and the entire circumstances of the birth were unusual even in the wizarding world, but both Hooch and herself had read up extensively in preparation and she felt it was well within their realm to handle. Thankfully Severus, although as slim as his birth father, had slightly wider hips, and with care and some help, that fact would not cost him his life as it had Aramanthus. A fact for which Pomfrey was profoundly grateful.   
  
And Remus was an absolute god-send.   
  
Both men had their eyes closed, foreheads pressed together, fingers entwined, breaths slow and measured. She had no doubt the latter was the work of the werewolf, with his gentle encouragements, helping Severus to keep himself focused, but not blinded by the pain. Returning the almost painfully tight grip that turned his wrist white with softly stroking fingers and soothing words, gentle and compassionate. And what Snape needed more than anything right now was someone to be kind to him. Poppy and Hooch may have been able hands aiding his body, but Remus was the tender touch soothing his soul.   
  
Not for the first time she found herself marvelling at the strength of friendship. There weren't many men she could name who would be there for a friend during a time like this. The strength of friendship had always been a facet of the Marauders that had captivated her – no matter how many times their pranks had landed various people in her care.   
  
The body under her hands began to tense again, drawing her attention back. Remus shifted up on his knees, almost crawling onto the bed as the grip on his hand increased, deft fingers stroking back the other man's hair with a damp cloth, the soft whisper of soothing words never ceasing.   
  
"A little longer, Severus, just a little longer, you're doing so well, you're so strong…"   
  
Severus held his gaze, letting the words wash over him, then his eyes closed again, tight lidded against another gout of agony and he fought the urge to scream. He could feel Remus return his grip and focused on it, clung almost desperately to it, his rock, stopping him from drowning completely in the pain.   
  
Poppy and Hooch worked quietly together, trading less and less words as time etched on further, professionalism hiding their worry.   
  
Something wasn't right. It wasn't something the mediwitch could pin down, but it was something years of experience told her. Every single sense told her things were fine, there wasn't a problem, except that last sense, the one she had learned to listen very closely to over the years. Exchanging a glance with Hooch she could tell the other witch had felt it too.   
  
Something was wrong.   
  
One of her monitoring charms turned a dangerous colour, a chime whispering through the air.   
  
"Finestra ocularus!" she snapped immediately, worry sharpening her tone. A screen akin to a muggle X-ray, but so much clearer stretched across Snape's back and her breath caught in her throat.   
  
"Oh no..." Hooch whispered.   



	24. Chapter 23

Outside the infirmary, a gradual Brownian motion had pushed various members of staff into the small waiting room. Some sat, some paced, others made small talk amongst themselves. It was like a stilted, formal party, awaiting the guest of honour.   
  
Which, Dumbledore mused wryly, it rather was.   
  
The headmaster winced as another hoarse yell boomed into the room. Poor Severus. He had suffered so much in his life, was it too much to ask that the birth of his child be without pain? Part of him wished he was in there to comfort his one-time student. The larger part, however, was simply glad to be out of it. He'd heard the stories.   
  
Hundreds of babies were born every day, without complication, and although this one was admittedly rather unusual, careful prodding of Poppy during the course of the potion master's pregnancy had left his mind easy at leaving it in her hands. So to while away the time, he sucked on a gobstopper, amusing himself by occasionally poking his tongue out to see what interesting new colours it had turned as he worked through the layers.   
  
Carefully brushing his whiskers out of the way, he tugged down a little on his beard, crossing his eyes as he tried to determine if his tongue had turned pinky-red, or if the last of the colouring was simply wearing off as McGonagall stalked past his vision again.   
  
"Nmy beah Nminerfa," he said indistinctly before releasing his tongue. "Do sit down. It comes of no good to anyone whatsoever if you wear a hole in the carpet. Except possibly the house elves, but as I understand it, they're busy as bees running messages to the Slytherin dormitories."   
  
"Albus, there are times when your sense of humour is delightfully refreshing in a situation. This isn't one of them." As soon as the words were out of her mouth, McGonagall sighed in apology. The headmaster beamed and patted the side of the couch next to him, and she sank slowly into the seat, hands folding in her lap. "I just wish we knew what was happening. For goodness sake, I think the students are better informed than we are, with those wretched house elves popping back and forth."   
  
"It's rather like waiting on the birth of your grandchild, isn't it?" Dumbledore reflected, carefully avoiding the gaze the witch shot him.   
  
"I don't consider Severus to be a child at all. Let alone my own…" she hesitated. "Do I?"   
  
"Of course not." Dumbledore said soothingly, settling back a little more comfortably and appropriating some of his deputy headmistress' cushions as she stood and once more began to pace. "Just the same way that Hagrid thinks I don't know about that little crop of marijuana Professor Sprout is growing for his Rattusai," he whispered with a little smile, investigating his tongue again. "ooh, purple, such a delightful colour…."

* * *

  
  
Time ticked, carpet wore away an infinitesimal fraction, Dumbledore's tongue turned a variety of delightful colours and Sinestra took extreme pleasure in letting Trelawney know that her prophesy of Severus' labour was incorrect. By three hours. And counting.   
  
Filch had slouched in, cat in tow and set up his own little corner of I'm-the-caretaker-and-you're-not-and-I-don't-give-a-damn-who-you-are-we-don't-need-another-brat glowering. Binns and the Baron were floating quietly in another corner, the history professor looking rather ill at ease with the other spectre. McGonagall paced back and forth, crossing paths occasionally with a now-return and much chastened Sirius. Hagrid was worrying with an old dog biscuit, walking it over his fingers and apologising as the crumbs spattered the head of a rather irritated-looking Flitwick, while Sprout, Vector and Pince were trading horror stories in quiet tones.   
  
"…poor thing, she never really did get over losing the baby so late…" The dog biscuit snapped in Hagrid's giant paw, an explosion of crumbs showering the room.   
  
Another scream ripped through the air, but there was something wrong with this one. It wasn't the yell of someone under great pressure and effort, this one was pure pain.   
  
Filch leaned against the wall and let an expression of bliss cross his face as the moment he'd been waiting for finally arrived. "Ahh there it is. God I've missed the screaming..."   
  
Minerva McGonagall, the epitome of eternal grace, head of the proud house of Gryffindor and dignified lady turned to face him.   
  
"oh dear me…" Albus backed away and surreptitiously tried to find a convenient statue to hide behind.   
  
Filch's mental radar wasn't quite that sensitive.   
  
The bunched fist that punched him in the nose came as a complete and utter surprise to the caretaker, bouncing his head off the stone wall and sending him stumbling forwards, tripping over Mrs Norris and landing in an undignified sprawl on the floor.   
  
Unfortunately the witch did not follow it up by fulfilling the dream of hundreds of students and administering a kick to his moth-eaten cat. She did however, take the opportunity to put her foot in a place many of her students would have been astounded she even knew existed before stepping over the writhing man and entering the infirmary.

* * *

  
  
Pomfrey didn't even look up as she entered the room, but Hooch did, gracing her with a bare nod, no joviality now, face serious and hands steady as she helped the mediwitch. Not that Minerva even saw it, her eyes drawn to and locked onto the man curled painfully on his side on the bed.   
  
Remus automatically moved to one side as she knelt beside him but didn't look up, entire being focused on the man before him, fingers wrapped around long pale ones, golden eyes tight with worry.   
  
"He can't push, not yet, not yet," he whispered frantically, panic glimmering under the surface. "The cord is wrapped around the baby's neck." Minerva cast an alarmed look at Snape but he didn't seem to have heard the words, eyes closed and chest heaving under a face twisted with agonised pain. Fear gripped her heart. Oh no, not after all this, please...   
  
Severus jerked, a whimper breaking through his teeth and Remus pushed closer, almost desperately clutching the fingers in his, reaching out to stroke the other man's temple, his cheek. "No Sev, please, don't move, you can't move, not yet," he kissed the fingers of the hand clutched in his, then the back. "Just a little longer, I promise, please, just hold on, hold on..."   
  
Behind the labouring man both Pomfrey and Hooch now had their wands out, rock steady, eyes tightly narrowed and lips moving rapidly but silently. It was incredibly fine work, taking almost all their strength and focus as they delicately worked the umbilical cord away from the infant's neck. One wrong move would either strangle the fragile life they were trying to save, or worse, rupture the cord itself, a move which most likely would kill both Severus and his child.   
  
Snape jerked again, the move seeming involuntary and it took all that Minerva had within her to close her eyes and calm herself. Reaching out, she gently stroked the side of the suffering man's face then took his hand in hers. "Severus," she called softly, calmly, calling on all her years of experience to sound sensible and reassuring. "Severus, look at me..."   
  
Pain-drugged eyes drifted open and floated almost uncaringly over to the elderly witch, a sluggish, exhausted blink the only motion beyond the pain. But he was listening.   
  
Minerva gently squeezed the hand in hers. "I know this is hard, Severus," she continued in a low, calm voice that betrayed nothing of the fear swirling through her soul. "And I know it hurts, but you need to be strong. Your daughter needs you to be strong for her."   
  
"We love you, Severus," Remus added his own gentle plea, stroking the sweat-matted face away from his lovers eyes. "We love you, we love you so much and you're being so brave, please, just a little longer, please,"   
  
Behind them, Harry's hands wrapped and twisted about each other, reaching out and drawing back, lost and alone in this vision of a moment long gone. Kneeling beside the bed, he reached out, hesitantly at first, then faster, reaching out to curl his hand around Severus'.   
  
"I'm here," he whispered, the sound lost under the murmur of other voices, three years into the past. "I'm here Severus, I'm here…"   
  
His fingers passed right through Snape's, as insubstantial as morning mist.   
  
Minerva stroked back the potion master's hair with a gentle touch, brushing the backs of her fingers over a heated cheek, and Harry's fingers itched to do the same. His arms curled around himself in a desperate attempt at self-comfort, mind disjointed, unconnected with reality. He knew it would be all right, he knew how it ended, but god, oh god…   
  
"Steady…steady…nearly there…" Hooch's voice was soft, coaxing as the duo continued their intricate work.   
  
Severus almost crushed her hand in his own and she didn't flinch, wrapping her other hand over the top of his in a reassuring squeeze.   
  
Remus reached out a trembling hand and curled it around Snape's free one, thumb gently stroking his wrist. He'd never felt so helpless in his life, forced to sit by, impotent, useless. The comforting words dried in his throat, leaving him voiceless and afraid as his lover suffered.   
  
"Clear!" Hooch's voice was large with relief as she drew her wand away with a flourish. Poppy wasted no time on theatrics as she tossed her wand aside, one hand resting on the small of the potion master's back, the other stroking against his temple. "Severus," her voice was gentle, but commanding, drawing his attention to her face. "Severus, it's all right now. You can push. It's safe, your daughter is safe, I promise."   
  
Confused dark eyes drifted away to her and back to McGonagall, who smiled reassuringly. "Push Severus, your daughter needs to be born."   
  
Drawing in a shaking breath, Snape clutched at the hands entwined with his.   
  
And pushed.

* * *

  
  
A ragged cheer broke out in the waiting room as the cry of a newborn baby girl wailed lustfully through the air. Scrabbling for a tissue, Hagrid blew his nose with a trumpeting noise and snatched poor Flitwick into a bone-crushing hug as Sirius sighed in relief and the female teachers all happily turned to talk of babies and childrearing.   
  
And seated serenely on the couch, Albus Dumbledore clapped his hands in delight and chortled in pure glee.   
  
"I'm a grandfather!"

* * *

  
  
"Oh my…"   
  
"She's gorgeous, Severus. Absolutely perfect." Minerva beamed down at the newest addition to the Hogwarts family as she bawled in the mediwitch's arms.   
  
Sweat-slimed and exhausted, Snape slumped heavily on his back in the bed and stared incomprehension at the now-clean and swaddled infant as she was laid in his arms. So tiny. So very very tiny. A stained finger ghosted over the form, not quite daring to touch, hovering over the tiny, perfect fingernails, the perfect little rosebud lips, staring helplessly into the emerald green eyes, so big in the miniature face as they blinked open and held his gaze.   
  
Congratulations and voices faded into the background, inconsequential noises as they studied each other in wonder. A little life. She had lived within him, grown within him, he had carried that tiny, perfect being inside him for so long it seemed impossible she was born and in his arms.   
  
He tore his gaze away from those eyes and rose his own to meet the smiling gaze of Remus. "mine?" he whispered plaintively.   
  
Remus reached out and touched his cheek. "Say hello to your daughter, Severus," he said softly.   
  
And Severus Snape reached out with shaking fingers to touch his daughter for the first time.

* * *

  
  
Afterwards Harry had quietly gone and sought the potions master out. The moon was high and full in the sky, and he knew that Remus wouldn't be there.   
  
Despite the sturm und drang of his speech, Snape was far from fully healed. He was well enough to stay in his own his rooms, and well enough for short walks and the like, but he was still travelling the long road to recovery and tired easily. Harry found him comfortably ensconced on the lounge, book dangling from his fingertips, drowsing in front of the fire with Araminta asleep in his lap. Harry found himself hanging in the doorway for a moment, just watching them. He found his nails scratching lightly against the wood of the doorframe, reassuring himself that he could touch, that this was reality.   
  
Which was silly, this was reality.   
  
Right?   
  
He stepped quietly across the room and gently lifted his daughter into his arms. Alive. Healthy. Real.   
  
Snape's eyes startled open, then relaxed at the site of the Auror. Smiling briefly at him, Harry gently carried his daughter into her room, tucking her up in the bed in the corner, a brief spell to caress the room with enough dim ambient light for her to find her way if she needed her parents during the night.   
  
He sat on the edge of the bed for a long moment and just watched her, trailing a gentle tip of a finger along her cheek. He'd almost lost her. More than once, but now he knew he could have lost her before she had even taken her first breath.   
  
Leaning back, he stared out the window at the moonlit sky. He could have lost her before she was born. He could have lost her to the death eaters. He could have lost her to simply never knowing the fact she existed. So many times, and yet, he hadn't.   
  
He was a very, very lucky man.   
  
Pressing a soft kiss to his daughter's forehead, he gently furled her fingers around a stuffed green snake before quietly sneaking back out of the room.   
  
Snape had pushed himself up to a sitting position on the lounge, book beside him on the cushions. He was rubbing sleepily at the back of his neck, then looked surprised as Harry carefully moved the book to a nearby table, sat down on the couch next to him and wrapped his arms around the potions master. "..Harry?"   
  
The Auror squeezed him tighter. "Hooch showed me the pensieve," he said simply.   
  
"Ah." Those five words were all the explanation he needed. He remembered the pain, and desperation, and winced in sympathy. He remembered how panicked Remus had been – and he'd been there, and been prepared. For a long time afterwards neither of them had slept well, terrified by every childish hitch in breath, listening all night until they'd finally given in and moved her to their own bed. There were charms against what muggles had termed sudden infant death syndrome, but none it seemed to ease the panic of a new parent.   
  
Hesitantly, his arms crept up to return the embrace. If it had been demanding, or sexual, or even pleading, he would have pushed the other man away, fought against it. Perhaps, even three years ago he would have no matter what the motivation.   
  
But his years as a father had tempered him a little. One hand gently stroked up and down the Auror's back, comforting, soothing.   
  
"I almost lost her." Harry whispered into his chest. "She was so beautiful, so tiny, so perfect, I wasn't there. I'm sorry Severus. I'm sorry I wasn't there…."   
  
The potions master made a soft, comforting noise and held him a little tighter, letting the other man rest.   
  
After a while, Harry stirred against his chest, raising a tousled head. "Thank you," he whispered. "For my daughter. For everything."   
  
Then he kissed him.   
  
It was gentle, it was shy, offering, not demanding, waiting for permission, soft, caressing and…and….   
  
_no_  
  
Severus' lips gently opened.   
  
It was soft, and sweet, and everything it had been, so long ago. No demands, no pressure just acceptance, pure acceptance, not looking to change, just to love. It was everything he had lost, and everything he had gained anew with Remus, yet different. It was the way things were, the way some part of him still wished they were and…   
  
**no.**  
  
Severus gently disengaged himself. "No, Harry," he said quietly.   
  
Green eyes peered up at him, soft and mournful. "No?" Then they looked away. "No. You're right. No."   
  
He got up and left the room, leaving Severus to stare into the fire and run his fingers across his trembling lips. 


	25. Chapter 24

Harry stared dully at the fireplace, his sole companions a decanter and glass. Finest scotch - on ice. A connoisseur's dream, cultivated to a perfection far beyond that of the muggle world. Warm and peaty, a delight to the palate.

Not that he could taste it.

The rim of the glass drifted gently back and forth across his lips, tracing flesh that still quivered slightly in memory. So warm, so soft. Just like he remembered, curiously shy, yet somehow strong, neither aggressive nor submissive, the taste…

_**No**  
_  
He closed his eyes and raised the glass to his lips.

A shudder passed through him, and he put it back down, its contents untouched. Ice chattered as his fingers trembled, the glass teetering on the edge of the table before falling to smash on the floor as his hand leapt convulsively to the scar on his forehead. A cold hand gripped his chest, paralysing both heart and lungs as his sightless eyes stared in dull panic at the wall beside the hearth

Firelight flickered.

It was a sight he'd come to associate with comfort. Warmth. Homely images gently wafting against the walls, a soft rug on the hearth, the gentle smell of wood permeating throughout.

But rug was stained.

The images on the wall were wrong, warped, twisted and furious with evil.

Someone was screaming

And the fire engulfed him

_/ Reality wavered and rippled before him, a shimmering pool of mercury, skating maddeningly past his fingertips again and again. There was nothing, no one. No up, no down, no air, no light. He fell endlessly through the void, although there was no sense of movement, nothing to gain purchase on._

Voices babbled, indistinguishable words, meaningless sounds, rising to shrieks that made him want to scream and clap his hands to his ears, but he had no mouth, no hands, no ears. The sounds faded to nothing, falling into the hollow nothingness that was his world.

This was hell.

No body, no soul, no sensation at all, all that existed was his will, his refusal to submit.

And his hate.

Anger, boiling and ripping through his very core, an endless hatred for everyone and everything. He would escape. He would be free.

And the punishment would be great.

Babes would scream, boiled and skinned raw in their mother's arms. Those who had defied him would crawl, stomachs torn open and entrails dragging behind them in the dirt, begging to kiss his feet, faces awash with the blood of those dearest to them as they screamed and plead for a death that would never come. The skulls of the unfaithful would splinter and burst in his hands, their raw, living brains shrieked in an eternity of purgatory.

The impure would die, and the pure would be scoured, cleansed of all weakness, blood would flow, great rivers of the precious fluid, he would bathe in it, he would dine on it, there would be PAIN and DEATH and VENGEANCE.

He would rise again. And the suffering of those before him would never end... /

Someone was screaming

It was him.

Harry slammed upright in his bed, hands clutching to his chest, fingers slipping a little on sweat-slimed skin before coming to rest over his heart, thundering as if to break through its fragile cage of skin and bone.

Something crept and slithered on the edge of his hearing, and his wand was to his hand before he could even think, words tumbling hurriedly from his lips and a raw burst of magic searing through the darkness to imprint on his retinas.

Crouching low on the floor, avoiding detection, gaining a precious few seconds in combat, he called for a light.

"Lumos!"

In the soft glow of magic, a lizard stared at him reproachfully through the hole blasted in the glass of its tank.

Harry dropped the wand and groaned, drawing his knees up to his chest and pressing his forehead on them. Before him, the lizard clawed patiently a few times at its rock, then settled down for another good stare, obviously expecting an apology of some sort. A pet given to him from a few Slytherin, although whether it was a welcoming, a reluctant acknowledgement of his position in Severus' family, or a crack at his ancestry Harry had never quite worked out. Probably all three.

The dreams. Always the damned dreams.

Voldemort wasn't dead. He was no more a corpse than the last time they thought him gone. A raw essence, a terrible malevolence, railing and banging at the edges of reality, seeking a way, a passage to tear back through. The Death Eaters weren't trying to resurrect their dark lord, merely form the pathway for his return.

The palm of his hand brushed over the familiar scar on his forehead, then clenched, as if to tear it from his skin. Like a hunter who feels the ache in old wounds at the snarl of the prey that escaped, Harry knew that Voldemort still lived. The war wasn't over. This time, these years….nothing but a remission. A false peace. The eye of a terrible storm.

And every step of the way, he had a front row seat. Seconds, minutes, days, years, he was always just behind, always just following the trail. But the gap was narrowing, he could feel it. His daughters life was proof.

No one else knew about the dreams. They were intelligence, he knew. Vital intelligence, they should be shared. But the ministry would ponder and discuss and the usefulness would fade under the minutiae of officialdom and ultimately crumble as dust. And what good would it do? The final showdown, he knew, would be his. And his alone. The fate of everything, of everyone, rested on his shoulders.

And it terrified him.

He was no longer the boy who lived. No longer sheltered by childish misconceptions and belief in the innate goodness of the universe. Stripped of innocence, he had seen the sins of the world too many times, had seen the light drowned and too drenched in blood to ever face that kind of evil again with the joy and righteousness of his childhood. He was nothing now, nothing but a tired man.

And when the time came once more to face the Dark Lord, Harry knew he was going to lose.

And he was going to die.

In the soft glow of wand light, the lizard finally turned its eyes away at the sound of his tears.

* * *

By the soft glow of the coals in the fireplace, Remus pondered.

Beside him, he could hear the reassuring breath of his lover, feel the soft rise and fall of his chest under the covers. Absently, he stroked the hand laying on his chest, peering through the darkness at the thin face draped in tendrils of long black hair.

A simple realisation hit him, one long known, but never failed to take his breath away. He would die to keep this man safe. To keep his life happy. And he would die without fear, without regret, would in fact go joyfully simply to treasure his lover all the days of his life. His lover, _and_ his daughter.

_Ah…_ his mouth opened around a silent exhalation. But therein lay the nub, did it not?

It should have been settled. Should have rested. The issue should have been laid to rest, to no more trouble the minds and hearts of wizards.

The word _should_, he pondered ruefully, was, however, rarely found to have any relevance to actual events.

Remus Lupin was in something of a quandary.

A werewolf is always of two minds. The rational thinking mind of a man overlaying the dark instinctual undercurrent of the wolf.

Most of the time the two lived an uneasy truce. With day to day tasks, the wolf became disinterested, antsy. Remus had found music of the classic artists fed its passion – Mussorgsky and Wagner among others soothed the savage beast somewhat. But always, inside him, he felt it pacing, hungry, waiting for the moon, the time to drench itself in blood and violence, leaving the man-mind helpless in its wake.

But this was known. Known to him since almost that first bite that had alternately blessed and cursed his life.

The problem was Harry.

The wolf in him howled at the intrusion, teeth and claw itching to savage this other male who whined and sniffled at the edge of his pack. But the man in him recognised the inevitable truth – that Harry was part of his family, that he deserved to be a part, and if Remus attempted to refuse him, it would only drive a wedge between Severus and himself.

And the core of him wanted to see Harry a part of his family. Because it was right.

So his feelings towards Harry were often mixed, to say the least.

Pressing a kiss to the pale face snuggled against his shoulder, he gently extricated himself, slipping silently from the bed and suppressing a small hiss as his feet met the cold flagstones between the bed and a rug. He'd never managed to convince Severus that a warm floor was a happy floor.

Padding quietly through their chambers, he paused in the doorway to Araminta's room. The toddler was sprawled on her back in the innocent abandon of children everywhere, one hand curled up near a cheek, the other clutching her stuffed snake. She'd kicked off her covers. Again.

With an affectionate chuffing noise, Remus pulled them back up to cover her, pausing for just a moment to watch, to let himself linger, to love her.

_Mine…_

Araminta wuffed in her sleep and snuggled further down under her doona.

Sleep eluding him, Remus found himself walking the halls of Hogwarts. The silent stone breathed beside him as he wandered aimlessly along endless corridors, wrapping itself around his mind and whispering alongside his thoughts.

Family. It was a concept that he'd embraced warmly with both his arms and his heart. A lover. A child. Precious, precious gifts he'd thought never to be his. He treasured them both, every day of his life.

Could he expand his thoughts of family to include Harry?

He thought that maybe…just maybe….he could find out.

Somehow he'd ended up outside the guest quarters. He cast a hesitant, almost furtive glance at the door to Harry's rooms, and saw with some surprise that the wake-lights were lit in their sconces. It seemed the Auror was having no more luck sleeping than he was.

And on the edge of scent, always strong so soon after a change, he thought he caught the bitter tang of tears.

His hand rose to tap at the door, then faltered, drifting back to his side. It was most likely private musings that kept the other man awake. He shouldn't intrude. It wasn't his place.

He had half-turned to go when he paused. No. Enough. Closed doors and secrets was a game he knew well, one he'd been forced to play all his life. And Harry had been excluded long enough. Being family didn't mean that you could walk away. Being family meant that you _couldn't_.

He knocked on the door.


End file.
